Серрано: возрождение языка коренных жителей Южной Калифорнии

Uto Aztecan language of southern California

Serrano (Serrano: Maarrênga'twich) is a language in the Serran branch of the Uto Aztecan family spoken by the Serrano people of Southern California. The language is closely related to Tongva, Tataviam, Kitanemuk and Vanyume. Serrano has free word order with the only rule being that verbs usually come last.

According to Ethnologue, there was 1 speaker in 1994. The last fully fluent speaker was Dorothy Ramon, who died in 2002. During the last years of Dorothy Ramon's life, she worked with linguist Eric Elliot. Together they wrote a book named Wayta' Yawa' (Always Believe). This book was written in Serrano and in English which talks about the Serrano culture and the life of Dorothy Ramon, which in turned saved the Serrano language from complete extinction. After Dorothy Ramon's death, the language is now considered dormant, as revitalization efforts have allowed the language to survive in some form. As of today, the nephew of Dorothy Ramon is seen as the last person who is able to speak the language at a fluent level.

The language was at a time considered to be extinct but there are attempts at reviving it. Both at the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians, and Morongo Band of Mission Indians reservations As of 2013, apps and games have been developed, and the San Manuel Band's Serrano Language Revitalization Project (SLRP) seeks to develop further multimedia resources for language learners. In May 2013, Cal State San Bernardino announced it would offer Serrano language classes to its students. The Limu project offers online courses in Maarrênga' (Morongo Band "Serrano" dialect) and Yuhaviat (San Manuel Band "Serrano" dialect). The Serrano language was traditionally a spoken language; an alphabet was not used until the 1990s. A new alphabet, with 47 letters, including the glottal stop, was developed starting in 2005.

Serrano is an agglutinative language, where words use suffix complexes for a variety of purposes with several morphemes strung together. In 1967, the language of Serrano was charted as having 33 consonants and 9 vowels in its phonetic form.

Bilabial AlveolarRetroflex Palatal Velar Uvular Glottal plain lab. plain lab. plainlab. Nasal Plosive voiceless ʔ voiced affricate Fricativevoiceless voiced Rhotic ~Lateral Sonorant