Yana language
E74837
The Yana language is an extinct Native American language once spoken in northern California, notable for its complex verb morphology and documentation by linguist Edward Sapir.
All labels observed (3)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Yana language canonical | 9 |
| Yahi language | 1 |
| Yana dialect continuum | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T598292 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Yana language Context triple: [Hokan languages, includes, Yana language]
-
A.
Yola language
The Yola language was an extinct West Germanic language once spoken in County Wexford, Ireland, that preserved many archaic features derived from early English settlers.
-
B.
Ndyuka language
The Ndyuka language is an English-based creole spoken primarily by the Ndyuka Maroon community in Suriname and French Guiana.
-
C.
Kamviri language
The Kamviri language is a Nuristani language spoken primarily by the Kam people in parts of eastern Afghanistan and neighboring regions of Pakistan.
-
D.
Berom language
The Berom language is a Plateau language spoken primarily by the Berom people in Nigeria’s Middle Belt region, especially around Jos in Plateau State.
-
E.
Nupe language
The Nupe language is a Niger-Congo language spoken primarily by the Nupe people in central Nigeria, especially in the Middle Belt region.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Yana language Target entity description: The Yana language is an extinct Native American language once spoken in northern California, notable for its complex verb morphology and documentation by linguist Edward Sapir.
-
A.
Yola language
The Yola language was an extinct West Germanic language once spoken in County Wexford, Ireland, that preserved many archaic features derived from early English settlers.
-
B.
Ndyuka language
The Ndyuka language is an English-based creole spoken primarily by the Ndyuka Maroon community in Suriname and French Guiana.
-
C.
Kamviri language
The Kamviri language is a Nuristani language spoken primarily by the Kam people in parts of eastern Afghanistan and neighboring regions of Pakistan.
-
D.
Berom language
The Berom language is a Plateau language spoken primarily by the Berom people in Nigeria’s Middle Belt region, especially around Jos in Plateau State.
-
E.
Nupe language
The Nupe language is a Niger-Congo language spoken primarily by the Nupe people in central Nigeria, especially in the Middle Belt region.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (50)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
Native American language
ⓘ
extinct language ⓘ language ⓘ |
| belongsTo | California linguistic area ⓘ |
| country |
United States of America
ⓘ
surface form:
United States
|
| documentedBy | Edward Sapir ⓘ |
| documentedIn | early 20th century ⓘ |
| endangermentStatus | extinct (no native speakers) ⓘ |
| ethnicGroup | Yana people ⓘ |
| glottocode | yana1280 ⓘ |
| hasAlternateName |
Yahi (for southern dialect)
ⓘ
Yan'an ⓘ
surface form:
Yanan
|
| hasDialect |
Northern Yana
ⓘ
surface form:
Central Yana
Northern Yana ⓘ Southern Yana ⓘ Yahi ⓘ |
| hasFeature |
complex pronominal system
ⓘ
complex verb morphology ⓘ gender-based speech differences ⓘ polysynthetic morphology ⓘ prefixing and suffixing verb morphology ⓘ rich aspect system ⓘ |
| hasLinguisticDescription |
grammatical sketches by Edward Sapir
ⓘ
“The Hokan affinity of Yana” by Edward Sapir ⓘ “Yana Texts” by Edward Sapir ⓘ |
| hasResource |
archival recordings of Ishi
ⓘ
field notes by Edward Sapir ⓘ |
| hasSyntacticFeature |
complex verb agreement
ⓘ
incorporation of nouns into verbs ⓘ |
| hasWordOrder | flexible word order ⓘ |
| ISO639-3 | ynn ⓘ |
| languageFamily | Yana (independent branch; often grouped with Hokan) ⓘ |
| lastKnownSpeaker | Ishi ⓘ |
| morphologicalType |
agglutinative
ⓘ
polysynthetic ⓘ |
| notableFor |
detailed early 20th-century documentation
ⓘ
role in studies of language death and documentation ⓘ |
| phonologicalFeature |
contrastive vowel length
ⓘ
small consonant inventory ⓘ |
| region |
Sacramento Valley
ⓘ
surface form:
Sacramento River Valley
Sierra Nevada foothills ⓘ |
| spokenIn |
Northern California
ⓘ
surface form:
northern California
|
| status | extinct ⓘ |
| studiedInDiscipline |
Americanist linguistics
ⓘ
historical linguistics ⓘ morphology ⓘ |
| subclassOf |
Hokan languages
ⓘ
surface form:
Hokan language family (proposed)
|
| timeDepthOfDocumentation | approximately 1911–1916 ⓘ |
| usedBy | Yahi subgroup of Yana people ⓘ |
| writingSystem | Latin script (in linguistic transcription) ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Yana language Description of subject: The Yana language is an extinct Native American language once spoken in northern California, notable for its complex verb morphology and documentation by linguist Edward Sapir.
Referenced by (11)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
this entity surface form:
Yana dialect continuum
subject surface form:
Yana Texts
subject surface form:
Yana Texts