Yawelmani Yokuts

Yawelmani Yokuts (also spelled Yowlumne and Yauelmani) is an endangered dialect of Southern Valley Yokuts historically spoken by the Yokuts living along the Kern River north of Kern Lake in the Central Valley of California.^[2] Today, most Yawelmani speakers live on or near the Tule River Reservation.^[3]

Yawelmani
Yowlumne
Yawʼlamnin ṭeexil
Yawelmani sentence documented by A. L. Kroeber
Pronunciation	[jawˀlamnin ʈɛːxil]
Native to	California
Region	Kern River
Native speakers	20–25 (2007, fluent and semispeakers)[1]
Language family	Yok-Utian ? Yokutsan General Yokuts Nim Northern Yokuts Valley Yokuts Southern Koyeti–Yawelmani Yawelmani
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–
Glottolog	None
Historical distribution of Yawelmani

Closeup map of historical Yawelmani distribution

Name

Academic sources frequently use the name Yawelmani while referring to the language, though tribe members more often use the name Yowlumne.^[3]

When referencing their language, modern speakers of Yawelmani use the terms inyana (Indian), and yaw'lamnin ṭeexil (speech of the Yowlumne).^[3]

Speakers

A 2011 estimate by Victor Golla placed the number of fluent and semi-fluent Yawelmani speakers at "up to twenty-five"^[4]

Revitalization efforts

In 1993, the Master-Apprentice Language Learning Program piloted a series of language programs that included Yawelmani. The program was reportedly effective in teaching conversational Yawelmani to tribal members without prior knowledge and increasing language use among elders.^[5]

Phonology

Consonants

		Bilabial	Dental	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Stop	plain	p /p/	t /t/	ṭ /ʈ/		k /k/	ʼ /ʔ/
	aspirated	ph /pʰ/	th /tʰ/	ṭh /ʈʰ/		kh /kʰ/
	ejective	pʼ/pʼ/	tʼ/tʼ/	ṭʼ /ʈʼ/		kʼ /kʼ/
Affricate	plain		c /t͡s/		č /t͡ʃ/
	aspirated		ch /t͡sʰ/		čh /t͡ʃʰ/
	ejective		cʼ /t͡sʼ/		čʼ /t͡ʃʼ/
Fricative			s /s/	ṣ /ʂ/		x /x/	h /h/
Nasal	plain	m /m/	n /n/
	glottalized	mʼ /mˀ/	nʼ /nˀ/
Approximant	plain	w /w/	l /l/		y /j/
	glottalized	wʼ /wˀ/	lʼ /lˀ/		yʼ /jˀ/

• Sounds /t͡ʃ, t͡ʃʰ, t͡ʃʼ/ may be heard freely as retroflex [t͡ʂ, t͡ʂʰ, t͡ʂʼ] among speakers.^[6]

Vowels

Yawelmani has 10 vowel phonemes:

	Unrounded		Rounded
	short	long	short	long
High	i	iː	u	uː
Mid	ɛ	ɛː	ɔ	ɔː
Low	a	aː

• There are 5 short-long vowel pairs.
• Short high vowels may become more centralized in fast speech: /i/ → [ɪ], /u/ → [ʊ].
• Long high vowels are almost always lower than their short counterparts: /iː/ → [ɛː], /uː/ → [ɔː].
• All long vowels may be shortened by a phonological process. Thus, a single long vowel has two different phonetic realizations:
  • /iː/ → [ɛ, ɛː],
  • /ɛː/ → [ɛ, ɛː],
  • /aː/ → [a, aː],
  • /uː/ → [ɔ, ɔː],
  • /ɔː/ → [ɔ, ɔː].
• Note that the high long vowel /uː/ is usually pronounced the same as /ɔ/ and /ɔː/.
• Note that the high long vowel /iː/ is usually pronounced the same as /ɛ/ and /ɛː/.

As can be seen, Yawelmani vowels have a number of different realizations (phones) which are summarized below:

	Front		Back
	short	long	short	long
High	i		u
Near-high	ɪ		ʊ
Mid	ɛ	ɛː	ɔ	ɔː
Low			a	aː

Syllable & phonotactics

The Yawelmani syllables can be either a consonant-vowel sequence (CV), such as deeyi- 'lead', or a consonant-vowel-consonant sequence (CVC), such as xata- 'eat'.^{[clarification needed]} Thus the generalized syllable is the following:

CV(C)

Word roots are bisyllabic and have either one of two shapes:

• CV.CV
• CV.CVC

Phonological processes

Vowel shortening

When long vowels are in closed syllables, they are shortened:

/p’a.xaː.t’it/	→	[p’axaːt’it]	p̓axaat̕it	'mourn (passive aorist)'	(/aː/ remains long)
/p’a.xaːt’.hin/	→	[p’axat’hin]	p̓axat̕hin	'mourn (aorist)'	(/aː/ is shortened)
/ts’u.juː.hun/	→	[ts’ujɔːhun]	c̓uyoohun	'urinate (aorist)'	(/uː/ remains long)
/ts’u.juːt/	→	[ts’ujɔt]	c̓uyot	'urinate (passive aorist)'	(/uː/ is shortened)

Vowel harmony

Yawelmani has suffixes that contain either an underspecified high vowel /I/ or an underspecified non-high vowel /A/.

• Underspecified /I/ will appear as /u/ following the high rounded vowel /u/ and as /i/ following all other vowels /i, a, ɔ/:

/-hIn/			-hun/-hin	(aorist suffix)
/muʈhIn/	→	[muʈhun]	muṭhun	'swear (aorist)'
/ɡij’hIn/	→	[ɡij’hin]	giy̓hin	'touch (aorist)'
/ɡɔphIn/	→	[ɡɔphin]	gophin	'take care of infant (aorist)'
/xathIn/	→	[xathin]	xathin	'eat (aorist)'

• Underspecified /A/ will appear as /ɔ/ following the non-high rounded vowel /ɔ/ and as /a/ following all other vowels /i, u, a/:

/-tAw/			-tow/-taw	(nondirective gerundial suffix)
/ɡɔptAw/	→	[ɡɔptɔw]	goptow	'take care of infant (nondir. ger.)'
/ɡij’tAw/	→	[ɡij’taw]	giy̓taw	'touch (nondir. ger.)'
/muʈtAw/	→	[muʈtaw]	muṭtaw	'swear (nondir. ger.)'
/xattAw/	→	[xatːaw]	xattaw	'eat (nondir. ger.)'

Vowel epenthesis

Yawelmani adds vowels to stems, when suffixes with an initial consonant are affixed to word with two final consonants in order to avoid a triple-consonant-cluster.

Grammar

Case system

Yawelmani is a primary object language.^[3]

A. L. Kroeber documented the language's case system in his 1907 paper The Yokuts Language of South Central California.^[7]

Case suffixes (per Kroeber)

Objective	Noun	-a (-i)
	Demonstrative	-ñ, -in
	(plural), Pronoun	-wa
Possessive		-in
Instrumental		-ñ, -ñi
Locative		-u
Ablative		-nit

Selected vocabulary

• 
  Yawelmani anatomy
• 
  Yawelmani kinship terms