Alsea language

Alsea
Yakonan
Pronunciation	/ˈælsiː/
Region	Oregon
Ethnicity	Alsea people, Yaquina people
Extinct	1942, with the death of John Albert
Language family	Oregon Coast Penutian ? Alsea
Dialects	Alsea Yaquina
Language codes
ISO 639-3	aes
Glottolog	alse1251
Pre-contact distribution of Alsean

Alsea or Alsean (also Yakonan) was two closely related speech varieties spoken along the central Oregon coast. They are sometimes taken to be different languages, but it is difficult to be sure given the poor state of attestation; Mithun believes they were probably dialects of a single language.

Varieties

1. Alsea (Alséya) (†)
2. Yaquina (Yakwina, Yakona) (†)

Both are now extinct.

The name Alsea derives from the Coosan name for them, alsí or alsí·, and the Marys River Kalapuyan name for them, alsí·ya. Alsea was last recorded in 1942 from the last speaker, John Albert, by J. P. Harrington.

The name Yaquina derives from the Alsean name for the Yaquina Bay and the Yaquina River region, yuqú·na. Yaquina was last recorded in 1884 by James Owen Dorsey.

Alsea is usually considered to belong to the Penutian phylum, and may form part of an Oregon Coast Penutian subgroup together with Siuslaw and the Coosan languages (Grant 1997). Numerous lexical resemblances between Alsea and the Northern Wintuan languages, however, are more likely the result of borrowing about 1,500 years ago when the (Northern) Wintuan speech community appears to have been located in Oregon (Golla 1997).

Sounds

Consonants

Alsea had 34 consonants:

		Bilabial	Alveolar		Post- alveolar	Velar		Uvular		Glottal
			central	lateral		plain	labial	plain	labial	plain	labial
Stop	plain	p	t			k	kʷ	q	qʷ
	glottalized	p’	t’			k’	k’ʷ	q’	q’ʷ	ʔ
Affricate	plain		ts
	glottalized		ts’	tɬ’
Nasal	plain	m	n
	glottalized	m’	n’
Fricative			s	ɬ	ʃ	x	xʷ	χ	χʷ	h	(hʷ)
Approximant	plain			l	j		w
	glottalized			l’	j’		w’

• The status of /hʷ/ is uncertain.
• /s/ is actually between alveolar and post-alveolar.

Vowels

There were both oral and nasal vowels.

Bibliography

• Alsea Indian Language (Yaquina, Yakona, Alsean, Alse)
• Campbell, Lyle. (1997). American Indian languages: The historical linguistics of Native America. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-509427-1.
• Golla, Victor (1997). The Alsea-Wintu connection. International Journal of American Linguistics, 63, 157-170.
• Grant, Anthony (1997). Coast Oregon Penutian. International Journal of American Linguistics, 63, 144-156.
• OLAC resources in and about the Alsea language