Northeastern Pomo, also known as Salt Pomo or Chhé'ee Fókaa ('salt people'), is a Pomoan language of Northern California. Descendants of Chhé'ee Fókaa speakers are members of the Chhé'ee Fókaa Band of Northeastern Pomo; There are no living fluent speakers, but several elders retain significant linguistic knowledge. It was spoken along Stony Creek, a tributary of the Sacramento River in the vicinity of Stonyford, California.
Chhé'ee Fókaa was one of seven mutually unintelligible Pomoan languages spoken in Northern California. Unlike the other six Pomoan languages (going to north to south: Northern Pomo, Central Pomo, Eastern Pomo, Southeastern Pomo, Kashaya Pomo, Southern Pomo), Chhé'ee Fókaa was not spoken in an area immediately contiguous with any other Pomoan-speaking territory. Chhé'ee Fókaa speakers were ringed by speakers of Yuki, Nomlaki, and Patwin; Yuki is unrelated to Pomoan or Nomlaki and Patwin, both of which are within the Wintu language family.
Phonology
Chhé'ee Fókaa has five vowel qualities, /i e a o u/, each of which may be long or short. Like other Pomoan languages, Chhé'ee Fókaa distinguishes voiced, voiceless unaspirated, ejective, and voiceless aspirated obstruents; it differs from most Pomoan languages in having a labial fricative <f> [ɸ], and a true series of retroflex obstruents <ṭ ṭ̓ ṭʰ> [ʈ͡ʂ ʈ͡ʂ’ ʈ͡ʂʰ]. Chhé'ee Fókaa also includes complex partial allophony for its voiceless lateral, which for some speakers could optionally be a retracted [ṣ] or a voiceless [r̥] and are presented in ( ) in the table of consonants below.
+Chhé'ee Fókaa Consonants (Americanist symbols with IPA in [ ] where different)place → manner↓LABIALDENTAL(POST) ALVEOLARPALATO-ALVEOLARPALATALVELARGLOTTALCENTRALLATERALPLOSIVEp p̓ bt̯ t̯̓ t̯ʰ ṭ [ʈ͡ʂ] ṭ̓ [ʈ͡ʂ’] ṭʰ [ʈ͡ʂʰ] d [d]k k̓ kʰʔAFFRICATEƛ̓ [t͡ɬ’]č [t͡ʃ] č̓ [t͡ʃ’] čʰ [t͡ʃʰ]FRICATIVEf [ɸ](ṣ)ł [ɬ]š [ʃ]NASALmnLIQUID(r̥) r [ɾ]lAPPROXIMANTwy [j]h
Grammar
Chhé'ee Fókaa grammar differs from its congeners in several ways. It shows only alienable possession on non-kinship terms, even for body parts (e.g. ʔawí: t̯ina: 1sg.POSS head 'my head'), whereas other Pomoan languages use inalienable possession for body parts. It also has nominative-accusative case marking unlike the agent-patient case marking systems of other Pomoan languages.
References
External links Northeastern Pomo language project at the Western Institute for Endangered Language Documentation Northeastern Pomo language overview at the Survey of California and Other Indian Languages OLAC resources in and about the Northeastern Pomo language