Wappo language
| Wappo | |
|---|---|
| Native to | United States |
| Region | Alexander Valley, California |
| Ethnicity | Wappo people |
| Extinct | 1990, with the death of Laura Fish Somersal |
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Yuki–Wappo
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| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | |
| Glottolog | wapp1239 |
Pre-contact distribution of the Wappo language
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Wappo is an extinct language that was spoken in the Alexander Valley north of San Francisco by the Wappo Native Americans. The last fluent speaker, Laura Fish Somersal, died in 1990. Wappo's language death is attributed to the use of English in schools and economic situations such as the workplace. According to Somersal, the name for the people and language is derived from the Spanish word guapo, meaning "handsome" or "brave". The name for the people was originally Ashochimi.
Wappo is generally believed to be distantly related to the Yuki language, and is distinct largely due to Pomoan influence.
Paul Radin published the first texts on Wappo grammar in the 1920s. Jesse O. Sawyer published the "English-Wappo Vocabulary" in 1965 and continued to study Wappo grammar throughout his life. Other linguists who have contributed to the study of Wappo include William E. Elmendorf, Alice Shepherd, Sandra Thompson, Joseph Sung-Yul Park and Charles N. Li.
Wappo has five vowel qualities, but the literature is inconsistent as to whether a length distinction exists. In his Wappo lexicon, Sawyer transcribes long vowels, but Thompson et al., who worked with the same speaker, report that they did not hear any long vowels.
According to Radin, the following diphthongs occur in Wappo: /ao/, /ai/, /ɛo/, /ɛi/, /ɛu/, /ei/, /ɔi/, /iɛ/, and /ui/.
The transcription style (bolded symbols below) is based on Sawyer's work with Somersal, with further interpretation by Thompson, Park and Li. Thompson et al. propose that Wappo has three types of stops: plain, aspirated and glottalized. Stops plus /h/ are therefore treated as single aspirated stops. Sawyer notes that /f/, /d/, /g/, /r/ and /rʼ/ are used for Spanish borrowings.
Wappo word stress is predictable, in that the first syllable of the word stem is stressed. In the examples below, the accent marks stress.
Wappo does not make distinctions in tone.
Nouns can be divided into human and non-human classes, which is relevant for pluralization. Human nouns are consistently inflected for plurality, but non-human nouns do not have to be inflected for plurality, even when their reference is in fact plural. For example, onoʔšiʔ-te "Indians" has the plural suffix -te, but mansanaʔi "apples" lacks the suffix.
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