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.
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) → |
Referenced by (2)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.