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Alsea
Alsea-Yaquina / Yakonan
Pronunciation /ˈælsiː/
Region Oregon
Ethnicity Alsea people, Yaquina people
Extinct 1942, with the death of John Albert
Language family
Dialects
Alsea
Yaquina
Alsean languages map.png
Pre-contact distribution of Alsean
This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters.

Alsea or Alsean (also Yakonan) was two closely related speech varieties spoken along the central Oregon coast until the early 1950s. 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.

Varieties

  1. Alsea (Alséya) (†)
  2. Yaquina (Yakwina, Yakona) (†)

Both are now extinct.

The name Alsea derives from the Coosan name for them, alsí or alsí·, and the Marys River Kalapuyan name for them, alsí·ya. Alsea was last recorded in 1942 from the last speaker, John Albert, by J. P. Harrington.

The name Yaquina derives from the Alsean name for the Yaquina Bay and the Yaquina River region, yuqú·na. Yaquina was last recorded in 1884 by James Owen Dorsey.

Linguistic Affiliation

Alsea is usually considered to belong to the Penutian phylum, and may form part of a Coast Oregon Penutian subgroup together with Siuslaw and the Coosan languages. Numerous lexical resemblances between Alsea and the Northern Wintuan 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.

Sounds

Consonants

Alsea had 34 consonants:

Labial Alveolar (Alveolo-)
palatal		 Velar Uvular Glottal
plain lateral plain labialized plain labialized plain labialized
Plosive/
Affricate		 plain p t tɕ k kʷ q qʷ ʔ
ejective [[Error using : IPA symbol "p’" not found in list|p’]] [[Error using : IPA symbol "t’" not found in list|t’]] [[Error using : IPA symbol "tɬ’" not found in list|tɬ’]] [[Error using : IPA symbol "tɕ’" not found in list|tɕ’]] [[Error using : IPA symbol "k’" not found in list|k’]] [[Error using : IPA symbol "kʷ’" not found in list|kʷ’]] [[Error using : IPA symbol "q’" not found in list|q’]] [[Error using : IPA symbol "qʷ’" not found in list|qʷ’]]
Fricative ɬ ɕ x xʷ χ χʷ h [[Error using : IPA symbol "hʷ" not found in list|hʷ]]
Sonorant plain m n l j w
glottalized [[Error using : IPA symbol "m’" not found in list|m’]] [[Error using : IPA symbol "n’" not found in list|n’]] [[Error using : IPA symbol "l’" not found in list|l’]] [[Error using : IPA symbol "j’" not found in list|j’]] [[Error using : IPA symbol "w’" not found in list|w’]]

/ɕ/, /tɕ/ and /tɕ’/ are spelled as s, c and c̓ in modern descriptions. Their phonetic value has been described as "palatal", or "between alveolar and palatal".

Vowels

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 a phonetically inserted vowel sound.

hr:Alsea jezik

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Alsea language Facts for Kids. Kiddle Encyclopedia.