William F. Shipley listed three Wintuan languages in his encyclopedic overview of California Indian languages.[1] More recently,Marianne Mithun split Southern Wintuan into a Patwin language and a Southern Patwin language, resulting in the following classification.[2]
Wintu became extinct with the death of the last fluent speaker in 2003.[3] As of 2010[update], Nomlaki has at least one partial speaker.[3] One speaker of Patwin (Hill Patwin dialect) remained in 2003.[4] Southern Patwin, once spoken by theSuisun local tribe just northeast of San Francisco Bay, becameextinct in the early 20th century and is thus poorly known.[5][2] Wintu proper is the best documented of the four Wintuan languages.
Pitkin estimated that the Wintuan languages were about as close to each other as theRomance languages.[6] They may have diverged from a common tongue only 2,000 years ago. A comparative study including a reconstruction of Proto-Wintuan phonology, morphology and lexicon was undertaken by Shepherd.[7]
The Wintuan family is usually considered to be a member of the hypotheticalPenutian language phylum[8] and was one of the five branches of the originalCalifornia kernel of Penutian proposed byRoland B. Dixon andAlfred L. Kroeber.[9][10] However, recent studies suggest that the Wintuans independently enteredCalifornia about 1,500 years ago from an earlier location somewhere inOregon.[11] The Wintuan pronominal system closely resembles that ofKlamath, while there are numerous lexical resemblances between Northern Wintuan andAlsea that appear to be loans.[12][13][14]
Dixon, Roland B.; Kroeber, Alfred L. (1913a). "New linguistic families in California".American Anthropologist.15 (4):647–655.doi:10.1525/aa.1913.15.4.02a00050.
Golla, Victor (1997). "The Alsea-Wintu connection".International Journal of American Linguistics.63:157–170.doi:10.1086/466317.
Golla, Victor (2007). "Linguistic Prehistory". In Jones, Terry L.; Klar, Kathryn A. (eds.).California Prehistory: Colonization, Culture, and Complexity. New York: Altamira Press. pp. 71–82.ISBN978-0-7591-0872-1.
Golla, Victor (2011).California Indian languages. Berkeley: University of California Press.ISBN978-0-520-26667-4.
Liedtke, Stefan (2007).The Relationship of Wintuan to Plateau Penutian. LINCOM studies in Native American linguistics. Vol. 55. Munich: Lincom Europa.ISBN978-3-89586-357-8.
Pitkin, Harvey (1984).Wintu grammar. University of California publications in linguistics. Vol. 94. Berkeley: University of California Press.ISBN0-520-09612-6.
Shepherd, Alice (2006).Proto-Wintun. University of California publications in linguistics. Vol. 137. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Shipley, William F. (1978). "Native Languages of California". In Sturtevant, William C.; Heizer, Robert F. (eds.).Handbook of North American Indians. Vol. 8: California. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution. pp. 80–90.ISBN0-16-004578-9.
Dixon, Roland B.; Kroeber, Alfred L. (1919). "Linguistic families of California".University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology.16. Berkeley: University of California:47–118.
Grant, Anthony (1997). "Coast Oregon Penutian".International Journal of American Linguistics.63:144–156.doi:10.1086/466316.
Pitkin, Harvey (1985).Wintu dictionary. University of California publications in linguistics. Vol. 95. Berkeley: University of California Press.ISBN0-520-09613-4.
Schlichter, Alice (1981).Wintu Dictionary (Report). Survey of California and Other Indian Languages. Vol. 2. Berkeley: University of California.
Shepherd, Alice (1989).Wintu texts. Berkeley: University of California Press.ISBN0-520-09748-3.
Whistler, Kenneth W. (February 19–21, 1977). "Wintun Prehistory: An Interpretation based on Linguistic Reconstruction of Plant and Animal Nomenclature".Proceedings of the Third Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society.3. Berkeley:157–174.doi:10.3765/bls.v3i0.3287.
Whistler, Kenneth W. (1980).Proto-Wintun kin classification: A case study in reconstruction of a complex semantic system (PhD thesis). Berkeley: University of California.
