Northern Paiute ,Laurie Bauer, 2007, The Linguistics Student’s Handbook, Edinburgh endonym Numu or nɨɨmɨ, also known as Paviotso, is a Western Numic language of the Uto-Aztecan family, which had around 500 fluent speakers in 1994 according to Marianne Mithun. It is closely related to the Mono language.
Language revitalization In 2005, the Northwest Indian Language Institute at the University of Oregon formed a partnership to teach Northern Paiute and Kiksht in schools on the Warm Springs Indian Reservation. In 2013, Washoe County, Nevada became the first school district in Nevada to offer Northern Paiute classes, offering an elective Northern Paiute course at Spanish Springs High School. Classes have also been taught at Reed High School in Sparks, Nevada.
Elder Ralph Burns of the Pyramid Lake Paiute Reservation worked with University of Nevada, Reno linguist Catherine Fowler to help develop a spelling system. The alphabet uses 19 letters. They have also developed a language-learning book, “Numa Yadooape,” and a series of computer disks of language lessons.
Phonology Northern Paiute's phonology is highly variable, and its phonemes have many allophones.
Consonants
BilabialAlveolarPalatalVelarGlottal Plain Lab. Nasal Stop Affricate Fricative Semivowel w
Vowels
Front Central Back Close Open-Mid Open Morphology Northern Paiute is an agglutinative language in which words use suffix complexes with several morphemes strung together for a variety of purposes.
References
Bibliography
[The publication erroneously stated vol. 56, but this has been amended in the PDF made available online by the publisher.]
External links Northern Paiute language overview at the Survey of California and Other Indian Languages Northern Paiute Indian Language (Paviotso, Bannock) Northern Paiute resources at the Open Language Archives Community Northern Paiute Language Project, University of California, Santa Cruz World Atlas of Language Structures: Northern Paiute