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| Alsea | |
|---|---|
| Alsea–Yaquina, Yakonan, Alséya | |
| Native to | United States |
| Region | Oregon |
| Ethnicity | Alsea people,Yaquina people |
| Extinct | 1951, with the death of John Albert[1] |
Coast Oregon Penutian?
| |
| Dialects |
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| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | aes |
aes | |
| Glottolog | alse1251 |
 Pre-contact distribution of Alsean | |
| This article containsIPA phonetic symbols. Without properrendering support, you may seequestion marks, boxes, or other symbols instead ofUnicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, seeHelp:IPA. | |
Alsea/ˈælsiː/ orAlsean (alsoYakonan) andYaquina were two closely related speech varieties spoken along the centralOregon coast until the early 1950s.[2] They are sometimes taken to be different languages, but it is difficult to be sure given the poor state of attestation; Mithun believes they were probably dialects of a single language.[3] They are commonly held to be components of a language isolate.[4]
Alsea is usually considered to belong to thePenutian phylum, and may form part of aCoast Oregon Penutian subgroup together withSiuslaw and theCoosan languages.[5] Numerous lexical resemblances between Alsea and the NorthernWintuan languages, however, are more likely the result of borrowing about 1,500 years ago when the (Northern) Wintuan speech community appears to have been located in Oregon. Alsea is also considered to be alanguage isolate.[6]
Both are nowextinct.
The nameAlsea derives from theCoosan name for them,alsí oralsí·, and the Marys River Kalapuyan name for them,alsí·ya. Alsea was last recorded in 1942 from the last speaker, John Albert, byJ. P. Harrington. Albert died in 1951.
The nameYaquina derives from the Alsean name for the Yaquina Bay and the Yaquina River region,yuqú·na. Yaquina was last recorded in 1884 byJames Owen Dorsey.
Alsea had 34consonants:[3]
/ɕ/,/tɕ/ and/tɕ’/ are spelled ass,c andc̓ in modern descriptions.[3][7] Their phonetic value has been described as "palatal",[8] or "between alveolar and palatal".[3]
| Front | Back | |
|---|---|---|
| High | i | u |
| Low | a | |
Three vowels are listed as/a,i,u/. Long vowel variants of/i,u/ are[eː,oː]. A mid vowel/ə/ occurs as aphonetically inserted vowel sound.[7]
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