Northern Paiute Language Project

We are community members and linguists at the University of California, Santa Cruz working to preserve and strengthen the Numu (Northern Paiute) language of the Koodzabe Duka'a ("alkali fly pupae eaters" of Mono Lake, Lee Vining, California), the Way Dukadu or Pogi Dukadu ("rye grass seed eaters" of Bridgeport, California), the Onabe Dukadu ("salt eaters" of Coleville, California), and the people of Pehabe Paa'away ("the place of sweet water", Sweetwater, Nevada). We have created comprehensive documentation — including an audio dictionary — that community members can use to learn their language.

The people who speak the Numu (Northern Paiute) language live in many communities across the western United States, from Mono Lake in eastern California into Nevada, Oregon, and Idaho. The members of each community often refer to themselves, and to the members of other communities, by a traditional food they ate. There are four communities on the eastern slopes of the Sierra Nevada that speak one dialect of the language: the Koodzabe Duka'a ("alkali fly pupae eaters" of Mono Lake, Lee Vining, California), the Way Dukadu or Pogi Dukadu ("rye grass seed eaters" of Bridgeport, California), the Onabe Dukadu ("salt eaters" of Coleville, California), and the people of Pehabe Paa'away ("the place of sweet water", Sweetwater, Nevada).

Other distinct, but mutually intelligible dialects are spoken farther to the north and to the east. Many of these communities have initiated programs to teach the language, including at Reno-Sparks and Pyramid Lake, Nevada and Burns, Oregon. These have produced learning materials, such as phrase books, audio and video tapes, and lesson plans, designed for use in the classroom. In addition, the State of Nevada has approved the awarding of credit for Northern Paiute language instruction in high schools at Pyramid Lake and in Reno-Sparks and McDermitt, Nevada.

The Numu (Northern Paiute) language is a member of the Uto-Aztecan language family. It is most closely related to the language of the Owens Valley Paiute and to Mono, spoken directly on the other side of the Sierra Nevada. More distantly, it is related to the language of the Shoshoni, who live in Death Valley, California and to the east and north, as well as to that of the Kawaiisu and Ute, who reside in southern California, Nevada, Utah, and Arizona. The structure and cultural significance of these languages — as well as their histories and the relations among them — are areas of active research for linguists, anthropologists, archaeologists, and historians.

Numu Communities

• Bridgeport Indian Colony
• Burns Paiute Tribe
• Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs
• Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Tribe
• Fort Bidwell Paiute Indian Reservation
• Fort Independence Indian Reservation
• Fort McDermitt Paiute and Shoshone Tribe
• Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe
• Reno-Sparks Indian Colony
• Shoshone-Bannock Tribes
• Shoshone-Paiute Tribes of the Duck Valley Indian Reservation
• Summit Lake Paiute Tribe
• Walker River Paiute Tribe
• Yerington Paiute Tribe

Our project began in 2005 as a class in the Department of Linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley, and has had many participants over the years. While active documentation of the language ended in 2016, the online audio dictionary continues to be hosted at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Participants

Molly Babel
† Leona Cluette Dick, Traditionalist Elder (Coleville, Mono Lake, and Benton Paiute)
Toza Gracie Dick, Traditionalist (Coleville, Mono Lake, Benton, Sweetwater, and Bridgeport Paiute)
Andrew Garrett
Erin Haynes
Michael Houser
† Morris Jack, Traditionalist Elder (Bridgeport Paiute)
Reiko Kataoka
† Elaine Lundy, Traditionalist Elder (Bridgeport Paiute)
† Edith McCann, Traditionalist Elder (Bridgeport and Mono Lake Paiute)
Edna Meg Dick McDonald (Coleville, Mono Lake, Benton, Sweetwater, and Bridgeport Paiute)
† Madeline Stevens, Traditionalist Elder (Bridgeport and Sweetwater Paiute)
Maziar Toosarvandani

• Northern Paiute texts across varieties. 2020, International Journal of American Linguistics 86 (S1).
• The imperfective semantics of durative gemination in Northern Paiute. 2017, International Journal of American Linguistics 83: 561–601.
• Vocabulary insertion and locality: Verb suppletion in Northern Paiute. 2016, North East Linguistic Society (NELS) 46: 247–256.
• The temporal interpretation of clause chaining in Northern Paiute. 2016, Language 92: 850–889.
• Two types of deverbal nominalization in Northern Paiute. Language, 2014, 90(4): 786—833.
• Achievements in Northern Paiute. Semantics of Under-Represented Languages in the Americas (SULA), 2014, 8:105–120.
• Descent and diffusion in language diversification: A study of Western Numic dialectology. International Journal of American Linguistics, 2013, 79(4): 445–489.
• Mono Lake Northern Paiute. Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 2012, 42(2):233–243.
• The role of nominalization in Northern Paiute relative clause formation. Workshop on the Structure and Constituency of Languages of the Americas (WSCLA), 2011, 16:151–165.