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Yahi is an extinct dialect of Yana formerly spoken in the upper Sacramento Valley area, roughly in the area between Mill Creek and Deer Creek. It is grouped with the Southern forms of the Yana languages which, together with Central and Northern Yana are an isolated group of languages, with possible connections with Hokan. Yana is well known as having been the language of Ishi, the last surviving Yana Indian, who worked with anthropologists to make a record of the language and culture.

History

The last documented speaker of Yahi was a man called Ishi who caused a scientific stir when he made contact with the outside world in 1911, long after the Yahi had been assumed to be extinct. Together with the language, he died in 1916.

Vocabulary

Yahi distinguishes male and female forms with male forms, frequently marked with the suffix -na, generally longer than female forms. Some examples are:

Examples

Some language samples from Kroeber, T

Pronouns

auna - fire

Numerals

Some numerals from Sapir et al.,

Example Phrases

See also

• Yana traditional narratives

References

1. Parkvall, Mikael (2008). Limits of language: almost everything you didn't know you didn't know about language and languages. Wilsonville, Or: Battlebridge Publications. ISBN 978-1-59028-198-7.
2. Kroeber, Theodora; Gannett, Lewis (1961). Ishi in two worlds: a biography of the last wild Indian in North America. Berkeley Los Angeles: University of Califronia press. ISBN 978-0-520-00675-1.
3. Kroeber, T. Ishi in two worlds Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984
4. Sapir, E., Swadesh. M., Haas, M. Yana Dictionary University of California Press, 1960

External links

• Ethnologue entry on the Yahi language

• Language isolates
• Extinct languages of North America
• Indigenous languages of California
• Native American history of California
• Hokan languages