Құрыштанған Майду тілі: Калифорнияның солтүстік-шығысының мұрасы

Extinct Maiduan language of northeastern California, US

Maidu '/m//aɪ//d//uː/, also Northeastern Maidu or Mountain Maidu, is an extinct Maiduan language of California, United States. It was spoken by the Maidu peoples who traditionally inhabit the mountains east and south of Lassen Peak in the American River and Feather River basins. These river regions include such valleys in the northern Sierra Nevada mountains of California as: Indian Valley, American Valley, Butte Valley, and Big Meadows. Maidu may also refer to the related Konkow and Nisenan languages.

The pre contact Maidu peoples lived in a hunting and gathering society in parts of central California. These peoples lived in an area around what are now called Mount Lassen, Honey Lake, Sacramento, and Lake Tahoe. They spoke closely related languages, including the living Maidu, Konkow and Nisenan languages, along with the Chico language and other extinct variations.

Farrell Cunningham, one of the youngest fluent Yamani Maidu speakers, taught "Mountain Maidu language classes in Greenville, Susanville, Nevada City and Auburn", and was active with the Maidu Theater in Nevada City, until his death on August 11, 2013, at age 37. Active language revitalization efforts have been underway since 2004. As of 2011, classes in Maidu were available in Nevada County, California. The Maiduan language family is considered to belong to the Penutian language group, along with such families as Miwok, Wintun, Yokuts, and Ohlone.

Notation: In the phonological discussion, phonetic symbols are encased in slashes / /, allophones are in brackets [ ], while symbols in parentheses ( ) represent non IPA orthography.

The syllables in Maidu follow a basic CV or CVC structure. The majority of words consist of alternating consonants and vowels, while combinations such as CVCVCCV also occur. In all cases, the syllables are consonant initial, and diphthongs do not occur in the coda. The syllables in Maidu display pitch in conjunction with the stress in the word. Syllables with the primary stress in the word have a higher pitch and tend to be more tense and have longer vowels. Secondary stress occurs with a low to middle pitch and lengthening of the vowel. Weak stress has a low to middle pitch and short vowels.

Notation: In the morphology section, some notations are used to refer to changes occurring to the morphemes when they are conjugated or combined with one another. 'I' indicates a change whereby the preceding word goes through the following changes: after a vowel (V) of a vowel and glottal stop (V') the root remains the same, so /wepa/ remains /wepa/. After a k or k', the preceding vowel is duplicated, so /banak'/ becomes /banak'a/. In all other cases i is added, so /jaman/ becomes /jamani/. 'R' indicates reduplication of the previous segment, so /my/ becomes /mymy/.

The pronouns are /nik'/ first person, /min/ second person, /maj/ third person, and /my/ demonstrative. /maj/ does not occur in the singular, and so constructions using /my/ serve as the third person singular. These include in a noun construction ('that woman' for 'her'), singularly ('that one') and repeated ('that person'). Other than /maj/, there are no special plural forms of the pronouns, as they are inflected for number along with other nouns.

While English distinguishes between singular and plural, Maidu distinguishes singular, dual, and plural. These inflections are most often used in conjunction with the pronouns, and are much less commonly used with other nouns. Both dual /c'o/ and plural /cy/ suffixes have several allomorphs. Along with these, there is a second plural morpheme /t'yt'y/ which indicates both plurality and a diminutive sense.

Maidu verbs consist of the verbal theme along a series of suffixes. Similar to nouns, the verb stems in Maidu result from several different sources. Some verbs, like /sol/ 'sing' are composed of a single simple root. Other verbs include a noun in the verb stem, such as /k'awba/ 'to dig a hole', which is a compound of /k'aw/ 'dirt' and /ba/ 'to dig.' Still other compound verb stems result from the conjunction of two separate verb roots, as in /t'ikc'e/ 'to believe', from /t'ik/ 'to have enough' and /c'e/ 'to see.' Like nouns, some verb stems include a component that has no meaning on its own, such as /bokweje/ 'to invoke', where /weje/ means 'to talk' and /bok/ has no known meaning. Still others are the result of a verb and an auxiliary verb, and finally a set of verbs involving motion uses /'y/ as its first compound.

The causative suffix /ti/ indicates that the actor is causing an action to occur, as in ma dondom 'as te 'ynotik'as, which means 'I walked the child, holding his hand' or 'I caused the child to walk, holding (his) hand.' This morpheme also occurs in words like /wonoti/ 'to kill', literally 'to cause to die.'

The designation of the verbal object takes five different forms. /'us/ is a reflexive suffix, as in wonoti'us'am 'he killed himself.' The second suffix, /jo/ indicated both plural object and repetitive actions. This occurs in c'ani majse 'ono wojomak'as 'I'm going to hit them (one after another) on the head with a stick,' and humbotmenwet 'as hesbopajodom 'I kept on shoving anything into the sack.' The third suffix is used commonly and appears to have an obscure meaning. /to/ can be used with /ju/ 'rub on' to form juto 'rub in' and with /mej/ 'give' to form mejto 'buy.' It may work to create the transitive form of a verb, although this is not always the case. /toto/, a reduplication of /to/ indicates reciprocal action.

The negative suffix /men/ has two variants, /men/ after a consonant and /n/ after a vowel. kyloknonom 'as wetemmen'usan 'the women didn't use to dance' and monma'amkano 'you won't'

The verb is completed by the addition of five inflectional suffixes. These suffixes mark the verb for expression of tense, aspect, mode, person, and number. There is variability in the ordering of these suffixes. There are five possible inflections for mode: indicative, subjunctive, optative, interrogative, and gerundial. Separate indicative modes occur for present past, future, habitual past, and past punctual. The optative mode can be split into monitive, intentive, and hortatory.

The present past indicative is marked by a null morpheme. /sol/ 'to sing' becomes solk'as 'I sang', sol'amk'as 'we two sang', sol'emk'es 'we all sang', sol'amkano 'you sang', or solk'an 'he, she, they sang'. Plurality is marked only in first person, otherwise 2nd and 3rd person have no marking to differentiate duality or plurality. This tense of the verb is used to express a recently completed action, a punctual action that is taking place, a state of being, an equation (something is something else), or a present static location.

Future indicative is marked by /ma/. solmak'as 'I will sing', solma'amk'as 'we two will sing', solma'emk'es 'we all will sing', solma'amkano 'you will sing', and solmak'an 'he, she, they will sing'. Future indicative indicate a future punctual action, a directive or a mild imperative.

The habitual past, marked with /'/ for past and /us/ for habit, indicates an action that was habitually done in the past, such as weje'usas 'I used to talk', or penem nikkotoc'om 'yhej'usan 'My two grandmothers used to go along'. The past punctual indicative, marked simple with /'/, is a rare verb tense. This form refers to a single act in the past that is disconnected from the current context.

the subjunctive mode, marked with /k'e/, occurs only with /jak/ 'resemble' and /na/ 'result in', such as jakk'es 'I seem to be'.