Palaihnihan (alsoPalaihnih) is a smalllanguage family of northeasternCalifornia. It consists of two closely related languages, both now extinct:

The Palaihnihan family is often connected with the hypotheticalHokan stock. Proposed special relationships within Hokan include Palaihnihan withShastan (known asShasta-Achomawi) and within aKahi sub-group (also known asNorthern Hokan) with Shastan,Chimariko, andKaruk.

The original reconstruction of proto-Palaihnihan suffered from poor quality data. David Olmsted's dictionary depends almost entirely upon de Angulo, who did not record the phonological distinctions consistently or well,^[1] and carelessly includesPomo vocabulary from a manuscript in which he (de Angulo) set out to demonstrate that Achumawi and Pomo are not related.^[2]William Bright has also pointed out problems with Olmsted's methods of reconstruction.^[3] The reconstruction is being refined with newer data.^[4]

Good, McFarland, & Paster (2003) conclude there were at least three vowels, *a *i *u, and possibly marginal *e, along with vowel length and ablaut.

Consonants were as follows:^[4]

Wiktionary has a list of reconstructed forms atAppendix:Proto-Palaihnihan reconstructions

• Bright, William; Olmsted, D. L. (1965). "[Review ofA history of Palaihnihan phonology by D. L. Olmsted]".Language.41 (1):175–178.doi:10.2307/411871.JSTOR 411871.
• Good, Jeff; McFarland, Teresa; & Paster, Mary. (2003). Reconstructing Achumawi and Atsugewi: Proto-Palaihnihan revisited. Atlanta, GA. (Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Society for the Study of the Indigenous Languages of the Americas, January 2–5).
• Mithun, Marianne. (1999).The languages of Native North America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.ISBN 0-521-23228-7 (hbk);ISBN 0-521-29875-X.
• Nevin, Bruce E. (1991). "Obsolescence in Achumawi: Why Uldall Too?". Papers from the American Indian Languages Conferences, held at the University of California, Santa Cruz, July and August 1991. Occasional Papers on Linguistics 16:97–127. Department of Linguistics, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale.
• Nevin, Bruce E. (1998).Aspects of Pit River phonology. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania.
• Olmsted, David L. (1954). "Achumawi–Atsugewi non-reciprocal intelligibility".International Journal of American Linguistics.20 (3):181–184.doi:10.1086/464275.S2CID 144619581.
• Olmsted, David L. (1956). "Palaihnihan and Shasta I: Labial stops".Language.32 (1):73–77.doi:10.2307/410654.JSTOR 410654.
• Olmsted, David L. (1957). "Palaihnihan and Shasta II: Apical stops".Language.33 (2):136–138.doi:10.2307/410725.JSTOR 410725.
• Olmsted, David L. (1959). "Palaihnihan and Shasta III: Dorsal stops".Language.35 (4):637–644.doi:10.2307/410603.JSTOR 410603.
• Olmsted, David L. (1958). Atsugewi Phonology,International Journal of American Linguistics, Vol. 24, No. 3, Franz Boas Centennial, Volume (Jul., 1958), pp. 215–220.
• Olmsted, David L. (1964).A history of Palaihnihan phonology. University of California publications in linguistics (Vol. 35). Berkeley: University of California Press.

• Palaihnihan languages
• Language families

• Articles with short description
• Short description matches Wikidata