Timbisha language

Classification

Timbisha is one of the Central Numic languages of the Numic branch of Uto-Aztecan. It is most closely related to Shoshoni and Comanche.

Geographic distribution

Timbisha was formerly spoken in the region between the Sierra Nevada mountains of eastern California and the region just to the east of Death Valley in Nevada. Principal valleys where villages were located were (from west to east) Owens Valley, Indian Wells Valley, Saline Valley, Panamint Valley, and Death Valley. In addition, there were villages along the southern slopes of the Kawich Range in Nevada.

Dialects

Each valley had its own variety of Timbisha with mostly lexical differences between them. There was, however, a general loss of ** as one moved west across Timbisha territory with ** virtually gone in Owens Valley varieties. McLaughlin's grammar is based on the far eastern variety from Beatty, Nevada, while Dayley's is based on a central variety from Death Valley.

Phonology

Vowels

Timbisha also has a typical Numic vowel inventory of five vowels. In addition, there is the common diphthong **, which varies rather freely with **, although certain morphemes always contain ** and others always contain **. (The official orthography is shown in parentheses.)

Consonants

Timbisha has a typical Numic consonant inventory. (The official orthography is shown in parentheses.):

Phonotactics

Timbisha stops (including the affricate) and nasals are voiced and lenited between vowels, are voiced in nasal-stop clusters, and are lenited (but not voiced) following **.

Voiceless vowels are less common in Timbisha than in Shoshoni and Comanche.

Writing system

Timbisha spelling is based on Dayley and uses the Roman alphabet. Ü is used for and ng for .

Grammar

Study of Timbisha has been carried on by Jon Dayley and John McLaughlin, both of whom wrote grammatical descriptions. Dayley has published a dictionary.

Word order and case marking

Timbisha word order is usually SOV as in:

|taipo kinni'a punittai |white-man falcon saw |"The white man saw a falcon"}}

The accusative case and possessive case are marked with suffixes. Adverbial relationships are marked with postpositions on nouns as well as with true adverbs. For example:

|kahni-pa'a |house-on |"on the house"}}

Adjectives are usually prefixed to the nouns they modify, unless the relationship is temporary when they are independent words with special suffixes. Compare tosa-kapayu, 'white-horse', "palomino or other pale-colored breed" and tosapihtü kapayu, 'white/pale horse', "white or pale horse" (who happens to be white or pale, but whose siblings may be any color).

Verbs

Verbs are marked for grammatical aspect with suffixes. Valence is marked with both prefixes and suffixes. Some common intransitive verbs have suppletive forms for singular or plural subjects and some common transitive verbs have suppletive forms for singular or plural objects. Otherwise, there is no grammatical agreement marked by the verb.

References

References

1. (1987). "Panamint Phonology and Morphology". [[University of Kansas]] PhD dissertation.
2. (1989). "Tümpisa (Panamint) Shoshone Grammar". University of California Press.
3. (2006). "Timbisha (Panamint)". LINCOM Europa.
4. (1989). "Tümpisa (Panamint) Shoshone Dictionary". University of California Press.