Tipai language
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Tipai, also known as Southern Diegueño, Kumiai, Huerteño, and Kw'atl, is the Native American language spoken by the Kumeyaay people of northern Baja California and the southern edge of San Diego County, California. Hinton (1994:28) suggested a conservative estimate of 300 surviving Tipai speakers.
Tipai belongs to the Yuman-Cochimí linguistic family and to the Delta-California branch of that family. Tipai and its neighbors to the north, Kumeyaay and Ipai, were often considered to be dialects of a single Diegueño language, but the current consensus among linguists seem to be that at least three distinct languages are present within the dialect chain (e.g., Langdon 1990). Confusingly, Kumeyaay is commonly used as a designation both for the central language in this family and for the Ipai-Kumeyaay-Tipai people as a whole. Tipai is often used as a collective designation for the two southern language communities, speakers of Kumeyaay and Tipai. Some uncertainty also exists as to whether Tipai is a single language with several dialects or should be divided into multiple languages (Laylander 1985:33; Mithun 1999:577)
Published documentation for the Tipai language includes several basic word lists, a grammar, and texts (cf. Mithun 1999:578).
[edit] References
- Leanne Hinton. 1994. Flutes of Fire: Essays on California Indian Languages. Heyday Books, Berkeley, California.
- Langdon, Margaret. 1990. "Diegueño: how many languages?" In Proceedings of the 1990 Hokan-Penutian Languages Workshop, edited by James E. Redden, pp. 184-190. University of Southern Illinois, Carbondale.
- Laylander, Don. 1985. "Some linguistic approaches to southern California's prehistory" [1]. San Diego State University Cultural Resource Management Casual Papers 2(1):14-58.
- Mithun, Marianne. 1999. The Languages of Native North America. Cambridge University Press.
