Numic languages Totally Explained

Everything about Numic Languages totally explained

Numic is a branch of the Uto-Aztecan language family. It includes seven languages spoken by Native American peoples traditionally living in the Great Basin, Colorado River basin, and southern Great Plains. The word Numic comes from the cognate word in all Numic languages for "Person." For example, in Shoshone the word is neme, in Timbisha it's nümü, in Southern Paiute the word is nuwuvi, and Kawaiisu the word is nuwa.

Classification and Subgrouping

These languages are classified in three groups:

Central Numic languages
- Comanche
- Timbisha (a dialect chain with main regional varieties being Western, Central, and Eastern)
- Shoshone (a dialect chain with main regional varieties being Western, Gosiute, Northern, and Eastern)
Southern Numic languages
- Kawaiisu
- Colorado River (a dialect chain with main regional varieties being Chemehuevi, Southern Paiute, and Ute)
Western Numic languages
- Mono (two main dialects: Eastern and Western)
- Northern Paiute (a dialect chain with main regional varieties being Southern Nevada, Northern Nevada, Oregon, and Bannock)

Apart from Comanche, each of these groups contains one language spoken in a small area in the southern Sierra Nevada and valleys to the east (Mono, Timbisha, and Kawaiisu), and one language spoken in a much larger area extending to the north and east (Northern Paiute, Shoshone, and Ute-Southern Paiute). Some linguists have taken this pattern as an indication that Numic speaking peoples expanded from a small core, perhaps near the Owens Valley, into their current range very recently. This view is supported by glottochronological studies, but that methodology is highly controversial. Recent mitochondrial DNA studies have supported this linguistic hypothesis.
The Comanche split off from the Shoshone soon after they acquired horses around 1705. The Comanche language and the Shoshone language are therefore quite similar although certain low-level consonant changes in Comanche have inhibited mutual intelligibility.

Major Sound Changes

The sound system of Numic is set forth in the following tables.

Vowels

Proto-Numic had an inventory of five vowels.

	front	back unrounded	back rounded
High	*i	*ɨ	*u
Non-High		*a	*o

Consonants

Proto-Numic had the following consonant inventory:

	Bilabial	Coronal	Palatal	Velar	Labialized velar	Glottal
Stop	*p	*t		*k	*kʷ	*ʔ
Affricate		*ts
Fricative		*s				*h
Nasal	*m	*n		*ŋ	(*ŋʷ)
Semivowel			j		w

In addition to the above simple consonants, Proto-Numic also had nasal-stop/affricate clusters and all consonants except *s, *h, *j, and *w could be geminated. Between vowels short consonants were lenited.

Major Central Numic Consonant Changes

The major difference between Proto-Central Numic and Proto-Numic was the phonemic split of Proto-Numic geminate consonants into geminate consonants and preaspirated consonants. The conditioning factors involve stress shifts and are complex. The preaspirated consonants surfaced as voiceless fricatives, often preceded by a voiceless vowel.
Shoshoni and Comanche have both lost the velar nasals, merging them with *n or turning them into velar nasal-stop clusters. In Comanche, nasal-stop clusters have become simple stops, but p and t from these clusters don't lenite intervocalically. This change postdates the earliest record of Comanche from 1786, but precedes the 20th century. Geminated stops in Comanche have also become phonetically preaspirated.

Major Southern Numic Consonant Changes

Proto-Southern Numic preserved the Proto-Numic consonant system fairly intact, but the individual languages have undergone several changes.
Modern Kawaiisu has reanalyzed the nasal-stop clusters as voiced stops, although older recordings preserve some of the clusters. Geminated stops and affricates are voiceless and non-geminated stops and affricates are voiced fricatives. The velar nasals have fallen together with the alveolar nasals.
The dialects of Colorado River east of Chemehuevi have lost *h. The dialects east of Kaibab have collapsed the nasal-stop clusters with the geminated stops and affricate.

Major Western Numic Consonant Changes

Proto-Western Numic changed the nasal-stop clusters of Proto-Numic into voiced geminate stops. In Mono and all dialects of Northern Paiute except Southern Nevada, these voiced geminate stops have become voiceless.

Sample Numic Cognate Sets

The following table shows some sample Numic cognate sets that illustrate the above changes. Forms in the daughter languages are written in a broad phonetic transcription rather than a phonemic transcription that sometimes masks the differences between the forms. Italicized vowels and sonorants are voiceless.

	Mono	Northern Paiute	Timbisha	Shoshoni	Comanche	Kawaiisu	Colorado River
*hoa 'hunt, trap'	hoa	hoa	hɨwa	hɨa	hɨa	hɨa	oa (SP) 'spy'
*jaka 'cry'	jaɣa	jaɣa	jaɣa	jaɣai	jake	jaɣi	jaɣa
*kaipa 'mountain'	kaiβa	kaiβa				keeβi	kaiβa
*kuttsu 'bison'	kuttsu	kuttsu 'cow'	kwittʃu 'cow'	kuittʃun 'cow'	kuhtsu 'cow'		kuttsu
*naŋka 'ear'	nakka	nakka nagga (So Nev)	naŋga	naŋgi	naki	naɣaβiβi	naŋkaβɨ (Ch) nakka- (Ut)
*oppimpɨ 'mesquite'			oɸimbɨ	oɸi 'mesquite bean'		oβi(m)bɨ	oppimpɨ (Ch)
*paŋkʷi 'fish'	pakkʷi	pakkʷi paggʷi (So Nev)	paŋŋʷi	paiŋgʷi	pekʷi
*puŋku 'pet, dog'	pukku	pukku puggu (So Nev) 'horse'	puŋgu 'pet'	puŋgu 'horse'	puku 'horse'	puɣu	puŋku (Ch) pukku (Ut) 'pet'
*tɨpa 'pine nut'	tɨβa	tɨβa	tɨβa	tɨβa		tɨβattsi	tɨβa
*woŋko 'pine'	wokkoβɨ	wokkoppi woggoppi (So Nev)	woŋgoβi	woŋgoβin	wokoβi	woɣo- (only in compounds)	oɣompɨ

Further Information

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