Hupa language

Hupa (native name: Na꞉tinixwe Mixine꞉wheʼ, lit. "language of the Hoopa Valley people") is an Athabaskan language (of Na-Dené stock) spoken along the lower course of the Trinity River in Northwestern California by the Hupa (Na꞉tinixwe) and, before European contact, by the Chilula and Whilkut peoples, to the west.

Hupa
Na꞉tinixwe Mixine꞉wheʼ
Native toUnited States
RegionCalifornia (Hoopa Valley)
Ethnicity2,000 Hupa (2007)[1]
Native speakers
1 (2015)[1]
RevivalL2 users: 30 (2007)[1]
Language codes
ISO 639-2hup
ISO 639-3hup
Glottologhupa1239[2]
Hupa and other California Athabaskan languages.

Speakers

The 2000 US Census estimated the language to be spoken by 64 persons between the ages of 5 and 17, including 4 monolingual speakers. As of 2012, there are fewer than 10 individuals whose Hupa could be called fluent, at least one of whom (Verdena Parker) is a fully fluent bilingual. Perhaps another 50 individuals of all ages have restricted control of traditional Hupa phonology, grammar and lexicon. Beyond this, many tribal members share a small vocabulary of words and phrases of Hupa origin.

Phonology

The consonants of Hupa in the standard orthography are listed below (with IPA notation in slashes):

Hupa consonants[3]
Labial Alveolar Palatal Velar Uvular Glottal
central lateral plain labial. plain labial. plain labial.
Nasal m  /m/ n  /n/ ng  /ŋ/
Stop plain b  /p/ d  /t/ g, gy1  /kʲ/ (G  /k/)2 q  /q/ ʼ  /ʔ/
aspirated t  /tʰ/ k, ky1  /kʲʰ/ (K  /kʰ/)2
ejective tʼ  /tʼ/ kʼ, kyʼ1  /kʲʼ/ (Kʼ  /kʼ/)2 qʼ  /qʼ/
Affricate plain dz  /ts/ j  /tʃ/
aspirated ts  /tsʰ/ chw  /tʃʷʰ/
ejective tsʼ  /tsʼ/ tłʼ  /tɬʼ/ chʼ  /tʃʼ/ (chwʼ  /tʃʷʼ/)3
Fricative s  /s/ ł  /ɬ/ (sh  /ʃ/)4 x  /x/ xw  /xʷ/ h  /h/ wh  /hʷ/
Approximant w  /w/ l  /l/ y  /j/

Notes about the consonant system and how it is written:[4]

  1. The palatal stops g, k, and kʼ are written gy, ky, and kyʼ before the letters a, o, and u.
  2. The velar stops G, K, and Kʼ have a limited distribution; G and K are only found in diminutive words.
  3. The sound chwʼ occurs mainly as a variant pronunciation of chw in some words.
  4. The sound sh is rare and occurs mainly in exclamations or loanwords.
Hupa vowel phonemes[5]
Front Central Back
Close-mid ɪ ~ e o
Open a

Vowels may be lengthened.

Orthography

The Hupa alphabet is as follows:

Hupa alphabet[6]
Spelling aa꞉bchchʼchwchwʼddzee꞉ggyhijkkʼkykyʼlłmnngoo꞉qqʼsshttʼtłtłʼtstsʼuwwhxxwyʼ
Phoneme aaːptʃʰtʃʼtʃʷʰtʃʷʼttseeːkkʲhɪtʃkʰkʼkʲʰkʲʼlɬmnŋooːqqʼsʃtʰtʼtɬʰtɬʼtsʰtsʼuwhʷxxʷjʔ

Morphology

Verb themes and classes

As with other Dene languages, the Hupa verb is based around a theme. Melissa Axelrod has defined a theme as "the underlying skeleton of the verb to which prefixes or strings of prefixes or suffixal elements are added in producing an utterance. The theme itself has a meaning and is the basic unit of the Athabaskan verbal lexicon." [7] In addition to a verb stem, a typical theme consists of a classifier, one or more conjunct prefixes, and one or more disjunct prefixes.[8]

According to Victor Golla (1970, 2001 and others), each Hupa theme falls into one of eight structural classes according to its potential for inflection, along the following three parameters: active vs. neuter, transitive vs. intransitive, and personal vs. impersonal. Golla (2001: 817)

1. Active themes are inflected for aspect-mode categories, while neuter themes are not. 2. Transitive themes are inflected for direct object, while intransitive themes are not. 3. Personal themes are inflected for subject, while impersonal themes are not.

Golla (2001: 818) presents examples of themes from each of the eight structural classes. Orthography has been changed to conform to the current accepted tribal orthography:

Active themes:

  • Transitive
Personal O-ƚ-me꞉n 'fill O'
Impersonal no꞉=O-d-(n)-ƚ-tan' 'O gets used to something'
  • Intransitive
Personal tsʼi-(w)-la꞉n/lan' 'play (at a rough sport)'
Impersonal (s)-daw 'melt away disappear'

Neuter themes:

  • Transitive
Personal O-si-ƚ-ʼa꞉n 'have (a round object) lying'
Impersonal O-wi-l-chwe꞉n 'O has been made, created'
  • Intransitive
Personal di-n-chʼa꞉t 'ache, be sick'
Impersonal kʼi-qots' 'there is a crackling sound'

Verb template

As with other Dene languages, the Hupa verb is composed of a verb stem and a set of prefixes. The prefixes can be divided into a conjunct prefix set and disjunct prefix set. The disjunct prefixes occur on the outer left edge of the verb. The conjunct prefixes occur after the disjunct prefixes, closer to the verb stem. The two types of prefixes can be distinguished by their different phonological behavior. The prefix complex may be subdivided into 10 positions, modeled in the Athabaskanist literature as a template, as follows:

11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0
adv thematic material pl/aug-
thematic		 3 subj obj thematic material adv distributive-
thematic		 mode-
aspect		 1/2 subj classifier (voice/valency marker) verb stem

[9]

Pronouns, pronominal inflection

Hupa verbs have pronominal (i.e., pronoun) prefixes that mark both subjects and objects. The prefixes can vary in certain modes, particularly the perfective mode (See e.g., Mode and Aspect for a discussion of modes in Navajo, a related Dene language). The prefixes vary according to person and number. The basic subject prefixes are listed in the table below:

Person/NumberSubject PrefixesObject Prefixes
SingularPluralSingularPlural
First (1) -wh--di--wh--noh-
Second (2) ni--oh-ni-
Third animate (3) -chʼi-xo-
Third obviative (3) yi--Ø-
Third indefinite (3) kʼi--Ø-
Third impersonal (areal-situational) -xo--Ø-
Reflexive –ʼa꞉di-
Reciprocal –n- łi

The subject prefixes occur in two different positions. The first and second subject prefixes (-wh- (or allomorph -e꞉ ), -di-, -ni-, -oh-) occur in position 2, directly before the classifier (voice/valency) prefixes. The animate, obviative, indefinite and "areal-situational" subject prefixes (chʼi-, yi-, kʼi- and xo-) are known as "deictic subject pronouns" and occur in position 8.

The direct object prefixes occur in position 7.

The Hupa free personal subject pronouns are as follows:

Person+Numberform
1sg whe꞉
2sg ning
3sg xong, min (low animacy)
1pl nehe
2pl nohni
3pl xong

Golla (2001:865-6) notes that the 3rd person free pronouns are very rarely used, with demonstrative pronouns being used in their place.

Demonstrative pronouns

 
-hay(i)  <  hay-i  'the one (who)'
-hay-de꞉  <  hay-de꞉-i  'the one here' (de꞉ 'here')
-hay-de꞉d  <  hay-de꞉-d-i  'this one here' (de꞉-di 'this here')
-hay-yo꞉w  <  hay-yo꞉w-i  'the one there (close)' (yo꞉wi 'there')
-hay-ye꞉w  <  hay-ye꞉w-i  'the one in the distance' (ye꞉wi 'yonder')
gollark: Ah, but my internet connection has poor upload speeds.
gollark: Higher bitrate means insignificantly higher RAM usage.
gollark: The main concern is just network bandwidth.
gollark: But it's buffered there for playback, I assume, then dropped.
gollark: Well, temporarily, sure?

References
  1. Hupa at Ethnologue (21st ed., 2018)
  2. Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Hupa-Chilula". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  3. Golla (1960:25–34)
  4. Golla, 1996 http://humboldt-dspace.calstate.edu/bitstream/handle/2148/48/HupaLanguageDictionary.pdf?sequence=1
  5. Golla (1960:25)
  6. Golla (1996)
  7. Axelrod, M. 1993. _The Semantics of Time: Aspectual Categorizations in Koyukon Athabaskan_, p. 17. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
  8. Sapir, Edward & Victor Golla (2001). Hupa Texts, with Notes and Lexicon. In _The Collected Works of Edward Sapir, Victor Golla & Sean O'Neill (eds.), volume XIV_, 19-1011. Mouton de Gruyter.
  9. adapted from Campbell, Amy. (2007). Hupa Ditransitives and the Syntactic Status of R. Conference on Ditransitive Constructions. MPI-EVA, Leipzig.

Bibliography
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