Kumeyaay language

Kumeyaay (Kumiai), also known as Central Diegueño, Kamia, 'Iipay Aa, and Campo, is the Native American language spoken by the Kumeyaay people of southern San Diego and Imperial counties in California as well as five Kumiai communities in Baja California Norte, Mexico.

Kumeyaay
Southern Diegueño
Native to	United States, Mexico
Region	California, Baja California
Ethnicity	Kumeyaay
Native speakers	500 in Mexico (2020 census)[1] 40–50 in the United States (2007)[2]
Language family	Yuman Core Yuman Delta–California Kumeyaay
Dialects	Kwatl
Language codes
ISO 639-3	dih (as part of Diegueño)
Glottolog	kumi1248  Tipai kwat1246  Kwatl
ELP	Kumeyaay

Hinton in 1994 suggested a conservative estimate of 50 native speakers of Kumeyaay.^[3] There were 377 speakers reported in the 2010 Mexican census, including 88 who called their language "Cochimi".^[4] The Barona Intertribal Dictionary^[5] lists among its Core Contributor Group, Patrick Melvin Curo and among its Extended Group, Stanley Rodriguez, Ed.D. and Ana Gloria Rodriguez, M.Ed. who continue to teach the language today.

Kumeyaay belongs to the Yuman language family and to the Delta–California branch of that family. Kumeyaay and its neighbors, 'Iipay to the north and Tiipay to the south, were often considered to be dialects of a single Diegueño language, but the 1990 consensus among linguists seems to be that at least three distinct languages are present within the dialect chain.^[6]

Confusingly, Kumeyaay is commonly used as a designation both for the central language of this family and for the 'Iipay-Tiipay-Kumeyaay people as a whole. Tiipay is also commonly used as a collective designation for speakers of both Kumeyaay and Tiipay proper.

Documentation

In 1999, published documentation for the Kumeyaay language appeared to be limited to a few texts.^[7] In 2019, Margaret Field (along with other translators and native speakers) published a trilingual book of stories and oral histories from Baja California Tiipay communities of Nejí and La Huerta.^[8]

Video and audio recordings of stories, conversation, and wordlists in the Tiipay variants spoken in Nejí and La Huerta have been uploaded to the Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America (AILLA).^[9] Some of these have been transcribed and are available to download on the Endangered Languages Archive^[10] hosted by the Endangered Languages Documentation Program (ELDP) at the University of London.

As of April 2023, classes are available through Kumeyaay Community College paired with Cuyamaca Community College as well as San Diego State University.^[11] There is also a Kumeyaay language immersion program.^[12]

Phonology

Consonants

		Bilabial	Dental	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar		Uvular	Glottal
						nor.	lab.
Stop/Affricate		p	t̪	t	tʃ	k	kʷ	q	ʔ
Fricative		β	s̪	s		x	xʷ
Nasal		m	n̪	n	ɲ
Trill			r̪	r
Lateral	fricative			ɬ	ʎ̝̊
	approx.			l	ʎ
Approximant		w			j

Alveolar sounds /t, s, n, r/ can also be heard as post-alveolar [t̠, s̠, n̠, r̠].^[13]

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Mid		ə	o
Open		a

Vowel length may also be distributed.

References

1. Lenguas indígenas y hablantes de 3 años y más, 2020 INEGI. Censo de Población y Vivienda 2020.
2. "Kumiai". Ethnologue. Retrieved 2018-04-14.
3. Hinton, Leanne (1994). Flutes of Fire: Essays on California Indian Languages. Berkeley, CA: Heyday Books.
4. INALI (2012) México: Lenguas indígenas nacionales
5. Miller, Amy; Langdon, Margaret (2008). Barona Inter-Tribal Dictionary: Iipay Aa Tiipay Aa Uumall. Barona Museum Press.
6. Langdon, Margaret (1990). "Diegueño: how many languages?". In Redden, James E. (ed.). Proceedings of the 1990 Hokan–Penutian Languages Workshop. Carbondale: University of Southern Illinois. pp. 184–190.
7. Mithun, Marianne (1999). The Languages of Native North America. Cambridge University Press.
8. Field, Margaret, ed. (2019). Footsteps From the Past into the Future: Kumeyaay Stories of Baja California. San Diego State University Press. ISBN 9781938537844.
9. "Central Diegueño (Kumiai)". The Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America. Retrieved 2023-08-15.
10. "Documentation of the Baja California Yuman Languages Kumeyaay and Ko'alh | Endangered Languages Archive". www.elararchive.org. Retrieved 2023-08-15.
11. "Kumeyaay Studies". www.cuyamaca.edu. Retrieved 2023-01-23.
12. Iipay AA - Santa Ysabel Language Immersion Program. Condor Visual Media. Retrieved 2023-01-23 – via YouTube.
13. Langdon, Margaret (1966). A Grammar of Diegueño: The Mesa Grande Dialect (PhD thesis). Berkeley: University of California.

Further reading

• Carrico, Richard L. (2012-05-21). "Can language preservation battle be won?". Books. North County Times. Archived from the original on 2012-07-25. Retrieved 2012-08-07.
• Couro, Ted; Christina Hutcheson (1973). Dictionary of Mesa Grande Diegueño; 'Iipay Aa-English/English-'Iipay Aa. Banning, CA: Malki Museum Press. LCCN 74206934.
• Couro, Ted; Margaret Langdon (1975). Let's talk 'Iipay Aa : an introduction to the Mesa Grande Diegueño language. Banning, CA: Malki Museum Press. LCCN 75332636.
• Gorbet, Larry Paul (1976). A grammar of diegueño nominals. New York: Garland Publishing. LCCN 75025116.
• Langdon, Margaret (1970). A grammar of Diegueño; the Mesa Grande dialect. Berkeley: University of California Press. Retrieved 2016-09-27.
• Mai, Anna; Aguilar, Andrés; Caballero, Gabriela (2019). "Ja'a Kumiai". Illustrations of the IPA. Journal of the International Phonetic Association. 49 (2): 231–244. doi:10.1017/S0025100317000536, with supplementary sound recordings.

• Miller, Amy (2001). A grammar of Jamul Tiipay. Mouton grammar library. Hawthorne, NY: Mouton de Gruyter. ISBN 978-3110164510.
• Miller, Amy (2008). Barona inter-tribal dictionary: 'Iipay aa Tiipay aa Uumall. Lakeside, CA: Barona Museum Press. ISBN 9780932653925.

External links

• ELAR archive of Documentation of the Baja California Yuman Languages Kumeyaay and Ko'alh