Каша́йский язы́к: структура и особенности

Native American language

Kashaya (also Southwestern Pomo, Kashia) is the critically endangered language of the Kashia band of the Pomo people. The Pomoan languages have been classified as part of the Hokan language family (although the status of Hokan itself is controversial). The name Kashaya corresponds to words in neighboring languages with meanings such as "skillful" and "expert gambler". It is spoken by the Kashia Band of Pomo Indians of the Stewarts Point Rancheria. In 2021, the number of speakers was estimated to be around 12.

In the normal case, every syllable requires a single onset consonant; no onset clusters are permitted. In most contexts, the rhyme consists of a vowel that may be long or followed by a single consonant in the coda, resulting in the possible syllables CV, CV꞉, and CVC. Examples of these structures are duwi "coyote", mo꞉de꞉ "is running (non final)", and kʰošciʔ "to bow". A few loanwords do have an onset cluster, such as fré꞉nu "bridle" and stú꞉fa "stove" (from Spanish freno, estufa). Loans may also have superheavy CV꞉C syllables, since stressed vowels in the source language are typically borrowed with a long vowel: pó꞉spara "match", kú꞉lpa "fault", pé꞉cʰka "brick" (Spanish fósforo, culpa; Russian pécka "oven"). An exceptional word with CVCC is huʔúyṭʼboṭʼbo "gnat". Superheavy CV꞉C and CVCC syllables are well attested word finally in specific verb forms. For example, the Suppositional suffix can be final as in yielding mo꞉lansʼ "he must have run down". More typically a superheavy syllable occurs when the rightmost suffix is one of several evidential suffixes containing an vowel that deletes when no other suffix follows, such as the Circumstantial in sinamqʰ "he must have drowned" and the Visual in moma꞉y "I saw it run in".

The determination of stress is quite complex and the main stress can fall on any of the first five syllables in a phrase, depending on various factors. According to the analysis in Buckley (1994), iambs are constructed from left to right and the leftmost foot generally receives the main stress: (momácʰ)(mela) "I ran in", (kél)(macʰ) "he is peeking in there". Non initial feet do not receive secondary stress but lead to lengthening of vowels in open syllables (which however does not apply to word final vowels nor to a large set of suffixes occurring toward the end of the word). The initial syllable is extrametrical unless the word begins with a monosyllabic root, as in the case of "run". For example, the footing in ca(qʰamá꞉)(lawi꞉)(biʔ) "start to cut downward" with the root "cut" skips the first syllable, while in (momú꞉)(licʼe꞉)(duce꞉)du "keep running all the way around" this is blocked by the short root "run". The pattern is further complicated when the first foot begins on a syllable that has a long vowel, as in di꞉cʼ "tell". If the following syllable is closed, the stress shifts to the foot that contains that syllable: (di꞉)(cʼáh)(qaw) "cause to bring a message out here". If the long vowel is followed by a CV syllable, i. e. if the initial sequence to be footed is CV꞉CV, the length moves rightward to create CVCV꞉ and the stress similarly shifts to the next foot: (dicʼa꞉)(qocʼí) "bring a message out!". Combined with extrametricality, this can lead to stress as far in as the fifth syllable: mu(naci꞉)(ducé꞉)du "always be too shy" from the root "be shy"; this verb forms a minimal pair with "gather", which lacks stress shift in mu(nací꞉)(duce꞉)du "always gather". While iambic lengthening is determined by footing within a word, stress can be reassigned at the phrasal level across word boundaries: qʼoʔ(di ʔí)(ce꞉)du "be good!" where qʼoʔdi is the adjective "good" and the remainder is the imperative verb.

A large number of processes affect the realization of underlying sounds in Kashaya. A representative sample is given here. The glottalized nasals surface unchanged in the syllable coda, but change to voiced stops in the onset: cf. the root "see, look" in canʼpʰi "if he sees" and cadu "look!". The default vowel changes to after , and to after (from underlying ): cf. the imperative in hanoy i "limp! ", pʰa nem a "punch him! ", cad u "look!". Any vowel changes to /a/ after a uvular: /ʔusaq in/ → ʔusá꞉qan "while washing the face", /sima꞉q eti/ → sima꞉qatí "although he's asleep". Plain stops are aspirated in the coda: /da hyut meʔ/ → dahyútʰmeʔ "break it!" (formal imperative); cf. /da hyut i/ → dahyutí "break it!" (informal). A uvular stop in the coda generally loses its place of articulation: /sima꞉q ti/ → simahti "about to fall asleep". Exceptions exist before certain suffixes and in loanwords such as taqʰma "dress" (from Alutiiq). Debuccalization of other stops occurs in various contexts as well. An aspirated stop in a prefix dissimilates from an /h/ or an aspirated stop at the beginning of the root, similar to Grassmann's Law: cf. the prefix /pʰu/ "by blowing" with aspiration in pʰu de꞉du "be blown along" but without it in pu hcew "a windbreak".

Kashaya can be classified as a polysynthetic language; it is primarily suffixing but has an important set of instrumental prefixes on verbs.

Noun morphology is modest. The main examples are prefixes that mark possession of kinship terms. The first person has several allomorphs including the prefix ʔa꞉ and CV꞉ reduplication; the latter is informal and is associated with phonologically less marked stems, no doubt derived historically from child pronunciations. The prefixes mi , miya꞉ , ma mark second, third, and reflexive ("one's own"). These prefixes occur with the suffixes nʼ, sʼ depending on the stem and prefix. Examples with /qa/ "grandmother" are miqasʼ "your ~", miyá꞉qasʼ "his/her/their ~", and informal ka꞉kanʼ "my grandma", based on /ka/ simplified from /qa/.

Verbs take a great variety of suffixes divided into many position classes. There are also instrumental prefixes that figure crucially in the use of many verb stems.

Pomo speaker Langford "Lanny" Roger Pinola (April 25, 1938 – April 21, 2003) lived on the Kashaya Reservation until age six. Essie Pinola Parrish (1902–1979), a noted basketweaver, educated Kashaya children in the language, and "compiled a Kashaya Pomo dictionary, working with Robert Oswalt, a Berkeley scholar well known in the field of Indian linguistics."