Alsea language

Alsea or Alsean (also Yakonan) was two closely related speech varieties spoken along the central Oregon coast until the early 1950s.^[1] 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.^[2]

Alsea
Alsea-Yaquina / Yakonan
Pronunciation	/ˈælsiː/
Region	Oregon
Ethnicity	Alsea people, Yaquina people
Extinct	1942, with the death of John Albert
Language family	Coast Oregon Penutian? Alsea
Dialects	Alsea Yaquina
Language codes
ISO 639-3	aes
Glottolog	alse1251
Pre-contact distribution of Alsean
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Varieties

• Alsea
  • Alsea (Alséya) †
  • 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.^[3] 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. Alsea is also considered to be a language isolate.^[4]

Sounds

Consonants

Alsea had 34 consonants:^[2]

		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	p’	t’	tɬ’	tɕ’	k’	kʷ’	q’	qʷ’
Fricative				ɬ	ɕ	x	xʷ	χ	χʷ	h	hʷ^[a]
Sonorant	plain	m	n	l	j		w
	glottalized	m’	n’	l’	j’		w’

1. The status of /hʷ/ is uncertain.

/ɕ/, /tɕ/ and /tɕ’/ are spelled as s, c and c̓ in modern descriptions.^[2][5] Their phonetic value has been described as "palatal",^[6] or "between alveolar and palatal".^[2]

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.^[5]

References

1. Buckley, Eugene (1989). "The Structure of the Alsea Verb Root: Papers from the 1989 Hokan-Penutian Workshop. Ed. Scott DeLancey". University of Oregon Papers in Linguistics. 2 (17).
2. Mithun, Marianne. (1999). The languages of Native North America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-23228-7 (hbk); ISBN 0-521-29875-X
3. Grant, Anthony P. (1997). "Coast Oregon Penutian: Problems and Possibilities". International Journal of American Linguistics. 63 (1): 144–156. doi:10.1086/466316. JSTOR 1265867. S2CID 143822361.
4. Golla, Victor (1997). "The Alsea-Wintuan Connection". International Journal of American Linguistics. 63 (1): 157–170. doi:10.1086/466317. JSTOR 1265868. S2CID 144293507.
5. Buckley, Eugene (2007). "Vowel–Sonorant Metathesis in Alsea". International Journal of American Linguistics. 73 (1): 1–39. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.81.2781. doi:10.1086/518333. JSTOR 10.1086/518333. S2CID 143330148.
6. Frachtenberg, Leo Joachim (1920). Alsea texts and myths. Washington: Govt. Printing Office. Retrieved 13 January 2020.

Further reading

• Alsea Indian Language (Yaquina, Yakona, Alsean, Alse)
• Campbell, Lyle. (1997). American Indian languages: The historical linguistics of Native America. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-509427-1.
• OLAC resources in and about the Alsea language