| Umatilla | |
|---|---|
| Tamalúut, Imatalamłaamí Sɨ́nwit | |
| Native to | United States |
| Region | Oregon,Washington |
| Ethnicity | Umatilla |
Native speakers | 25 (2007)[1] |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | uma |
| Glottolog | umat1237 |
Umatilla/ˌjuːməˈtɪlə/ (Tamalúut or Imatalamłaamí Sɨ́nwit) is a variety of SouthernSahaptin, part of theSahaptian subfamily of thePlateau Penutian group.[2] It was spoken during late aboriginal times along the Columbia River and is therefore also called Columbia River Sahaptin. It is currently spoken as a first language by a few dozen elders and some adults in theUmatilla Reservation in Oregon. Some sources say thatUmatilla is derived fromimatilám-hlama:hlama means 'those living at' or 'people of' and there is an ongoing debate about the meaning ofimatilám, but it is said to be an island in the Columbia River. B. Rigsby and N. Rude mention the village ofímatalam that was situated at the mouth of the Umatilla River and where the language was spoken.
The Umatillas pronounce the wordímatalam. A Umatilla person is calledimatalamłá (with orthographic ł representing IPA/ɬ/) and the Umatilla people are calledimatalamłáma. TheNez Perce refer to the Umatilla people ashiyówatalampoo. See Aoki (1994:171).
As of 2013, there are about 50 first language speakers of Umatilla. The language is taught at the Nixyaawii Community School. "There are six full-time language instructors in CTUIR (Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation). Nixyaawii Community School has offered Umatilla, Walla Walla and Nez Perce language classes for the last decade and a Cay-Uma-Wa Head Start program is being developed to reach children while they’re young. There are also online video resources and the Tamaluut immersion school, a newlanguage immersion program for three- to five-year-olds."[3][4] The Wíyat'ish Naknúwit "For the Future" Language Project, has trained speakers using a Master-Apprentice program.[5] A Flash Story Camp has been held by First Nations Development in collaboration with Tamastslikt's Language Enhancement Program and Education Department, and the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation.[6]In 2015, Umatilla instruction will be given at the high school level. There is interest in adapting a curriculum for Umatilla that has been used successfully forOkanagan Salish at the Salish School of Spokane.[7]
The Umatilla Dictionary was published in 2014 with the University of Washington Press. The Dictionary documents the language of the Umatilla people east of the Cascade Mountains in Oregon and Washington. Working for many years with the accumulated scholarship of linguists and anthropologists as well as with elders on the Umatilla Reservation, tribal linguist Noel Rude has painstakingly recorded words, pronunciations, phrases, and other elements of the Umatilla language. The dictionary includes a grammar and comparative information that places the Umatilla language in its linguistic and historical context and compiles all of its known words, phrases, and constructions. Umatilla Dictionary is an important work for people of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, the Yakama Nation, and the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs and adds to the growing linguistic work being done by tribes and scholars on endangered languages.[8]
Rigsby and Rude use a technical alphabet based upon theAmericanist phonetic notation to transcribe Umatilla, though other practical orthographies also exist.
| front | central | back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| high | i,iː | ɨ | u,uː |
| low | a,aː |
All long vowels are written as clusters of identical short vowels.
Vowels of different quality never appear in clusters. Allowed diphthongs are the following: /aj aːj aw aːw iw iːw uj uːj/.
| Bilabial | Dental/Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Uvular | Glottal | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| plain | sibilant | lateral | |||||||||
| plain | labial | plain | labial | ||||||||
| Plosive / Affricate | plain | p | t | ts⟨c⟩ | tɬ⟨ƛ⟩ | tʃ⟨č⟩ | k | kʷ | q | qʷ | ʔ⟨ʼ⟩ |
| glottalized | pʼ | tʼ | tsʼ⟨cʼ⟩ | tɬʼ⟨ƛʼ⟩ | tʃʼ⟨čʼ⟩ | kʼ | kʷ’ | qʼ | qʷ’ | ||
| Fricative | s | ɬ⟨ł⟩ | ʃ⟨š⟩ | x | xʷ | χ⟨x̣⟩ | χʷ⟨x̣ʷ⟩ | h | |||
| Nasal | m | n | |||||||||
| Lateral | l | ||||||||||
| Semivowel | j⟨y⟩ | w | |||||||||
Consonant clusters are common and show few restrictions. All words begin with a consonant, even though according to orthographic conventions, an initial glottal stop before a vowel is not written and initial unstressed /ʼɨ/ is not written before /m n l/ plus a consonant. Initial clusters of up to three consonants are allowed (pccák 'pepper'), medials of up to five consonants and finals of up to four consonants (látx̣tx̣ 'ashes'). Clusters of identical consonants also occur:qqápni 'silly',ččù 'quiet'.The laryngeals /h ʼ/ usually occur in initial position and sometimes in intervocalic position.
As yet, no detailed description of syllable structure in Umatilla Sahaptin has been written.
Primary stress is distinctive and is indicated by an acute accent. It occurs on one syllable of a word. Stress contrast can be seen in the following examples:
páqʼinušana
he saw him
paqʼínušana
they saw (him)
páqʼinušana {} paqʼínušana
{he saw him} {} {they saw (him)}
Nondistinctive secondary and lesser stresses occur phonetically and are conditioned by phonetic and syntactic environments.
Alternation in the phonetic shapes of morphemes is frequent and most often vocalic.
Vocalic alternations result from processes (ablaut,epenthesis and truncation) that can be morphologically or phonologically conditioned.
Consonantal alternations arise from two processes: velar stops /k kʼ/ may palatalize to /c č/ and affricates /c č/ become /t/ before /s š/. For instance, /c/ + /š/ becomes /t/ + /š/.
The morphological structure of Umatilla and other Sahaptin dialects is synthetic to mildly polysynthetic.
The processes used are clisis, reduplication, ablaut, compounding, suppletion, order and the most common one is affixation (suffixation in particular).
Nouns, adjectives and pronouns inflect for number and case. There are three number categories: singular, dual and plural. The singular is not marked. The dual is marked by the suffix-in (with allomorphs-win,-yn or-n depending on the final). There are two main ways to mark the plural: with the suffix -ma (tílaaki-ma 'women") and by full or partial reduplication (pšwá 'stone',pšwápšwa 'stones'). These two markers can sometimes co-exist in the same word. Several nouns feature irregular plural marks that might have been more widely used in the past, such as the prefixa- and the suffix-tu.
Verbs have the most complex morphology of all the parts of speech. Their internal structure is characterized by three major positions:
Umatilla, like other varieties of Sahaptin, is characterized by a free word order and a complex case-marking system.
| Nonhuman | Human | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Singular | Dual | Plural | ||
| Unmarked | kʼúsi (horse) | ɨwínš (man) | awínšin | awínšma |
| Inverse ergative | kʼúsinɨm | ɨwínšnɨm | no dual | no plural |
| Obviative ergative | kʼúsiyin | ɨwínšin | no dual | no plural |
| Objective | kʼúsina | ɨwínšna | awínšinaman | awínšmaaman |
| Comitative | kʼúsiyin | ɨwínšin | no dual | no plural |
| Genitive | kʼúsinmí | ɨwínšmí | awínšinamí | awínšmaamí |
| Benefactive | kʼúsiyay | ɨwínšmíyay | awínšinamíyay | awinšmaamíyay |
| Dative | kʼúsiyaw | ɨwinšmíyaw | awinšinamíyaw | awinšmaamíyaw |
| Allative | kʼúsikan | ɨwinšmíkan | awinšinamíkan | awinšmaamíkan |
| Ablative | kʼúsikni | ɨwinšmíkni | awinšinamíkni | awinšmaamíkni |
| Instrumental | kʼúsiki | ɨwinšmíki | awinšinamíki | awinšmaamíki |
| Locative | kʼúsipa | ɨwinšmípa | awinšinamípa | awinšmaamípa |
Italics indicate extinct languages | |||||||||||||||||||||
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