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Utian Miwok-Costanoan, Mutsun
Geographic distribution:	California
Genetic classification:	Yok-Utian  Utian
Subdivisions:	Miwok Costanoan
Pre-contact distribution of Utian languages

Utian (also Miwok-Costanoan, Mutsun) is a family of indigenous languages spoken in the central and north portion of California, United States. The Miwok and Ohlone peoples both spoke a language in the Utian linguistic group. Some linguists consider the Utian languages a branch of a larger Penutian language family.

All Utian languages are severely endangered.

Family Division

The Utian family consists of 15 languages (or dialects) with two major branches, Miwokan and Costanoan. The classification below is based primarily on Callaghan (2001). Other classifications list Northern Costanoan, Southern Costanoan, and Karkin as single languages, with the following subgroups of each considered as dialects:

I. Miwokan (a.k.a. Miwok, Miwuk, Moquelumnan) -

A. Eastern Miwok

1. Plains Miwok

2. Bay Miwok (a.k.a. Saclan) (†) - Bay Miwok is now extinct.

i. Sierra Miwok

3. Northern Sierra Miwok

4. Central Sierra Miwok

5. Southern Sierra Miwok.

B. Western Miwok

6. Coast Miwok (†) - Coast Miwok is now extinct, was probably a single language with two variant dialects.

a. Bodega Miwok

b. Marin Miwok

7. Lake Miwok

II. Ohlone (a.k.a. Costanoan) (†) - The entire Ohlone (Costanoan) family is now extinct. Chochenyo, Tamyen, and Ramaytush were quite similar and were probably a single language with several dialects.

A. Northern Coastanoan (†)

8. Chalon (a.k.a. Cholon, Soledad) (†) (?) - Chalon may be a transitional language between Northern and Southern Costanoan.

9. Awaswas (a.k.a. Santa Cruz Costanoan) (†) - All the documented speakers of Awaswas were quite different, and so it may not have actually been a single language.

10. Tamyen (a.k.a. Tamien, Santa Clara Costanoan) (†)

11. Chochenyo (a.k.a. Chocheño, Chocheno, East Bay Costanoan)

12. Ramaytush (a.k.a. San Francisco Costanoan)

B. Southern Costanoan (†)

13. Mutsun (a.k.a. San Juan Bautista Costanoan) (†)

14. Rumsen (a.k.a. Rumsien, San Carlos, Carmel) (†)

C. Karkin

15. Karkin (a.k.a. Carquin) (†)

Dialect or language debate

Regarding the eight Costanoan branches, sources differ on if they were eight language dialects, or eight separate languages. Richard Levy contradicts himself on this point: First he says "Costanoans themselves were a set of tribelets [small tribes] who spoke a common language... distinguished from one another by slight differences in dialect," however after saying that, he concludes: "The eight branches of the Costanoan family were separate languages (not dialects) as different from one another as Spanish is from French." (Levy, 1978:485, "Language and Territory"). Randall Milliken (1995:24-26) states there were eight dialects, and that the northern dialects Ramaytush, Tamyen, Chochenyo and Karkin might have emerged during the Mission Era. ¹

See also

• Penutian languages

External links

• Ethnologue: Utian
• Native Tribes, Groups, Language Families and Dialects of California in 1770 (map after Kroeber)
• Online books about the Southern Sierra Miwok
• Central Sierra Miwok Dictionary
• Southern Sierra Miwok Dictionary
• Coast Miwok Language Tutorial

References

1. Broadbent, Sylvia. (1964). The Southern Sierra Miwok Language. University of California publications in linguistics (Vol. 38). Berkeley: University of California Press.
2. Origin of the word Yosemite (and linked references)
3. Callaghan, Catherine. (2001). More evidence for Yok-Utian: A reanalysis of the Dixon and Kroeber sets International Journal of American Linguistics, 67 (3), 313-346.
4. Levy, Richard. 1978. Costanoan, in Handbook of North American Indians, Vol. 8 (California). William C. Sturtevant, and Robert F. Heizer, eds. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1978. ISBN 0-16-004578-9 / 0160045754, pages 485-495.
5. Milliken, Randall. A Time of Little Choice: The Disintegration of Tribal Culture in the San Francisco Bay Area 1769-1910. Menlo Park, CA: Ballena Press Publication, 1995. ISBN 0-87919-132-5 (alk. paper)
6. Mithun, Marianne. (1999). The languages of Native North America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-23228-7 (hbk); ISBN 0-521-29875-X.
7. Teixeira, Lauren. The Costanoan/Ohlone Indians of the San Francisco and Monterey Bay Area, A Research Guide. Menlo Park, CA: Ballena Press Publication, 1997. ISBN 0-87919-141-4.

Notes

1. ^ For the names of the languages, see Levy 1978:485; Teixeira 1997:33-34; and Milliken 1995:24-26. The latter two both cite Levy 1978:485 as their source. For the dialect argument and amalgamation, refer to Milliken, 1995:24-26, "Linguistic Landscape."

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