Shasta language

Shasta
Native to	United States
Region	primarily northern California
Ethnicity	Shasta people
Extinct	by end of 20th century
Language family	Hokan ? Shasta–Palaihnihan Shastan Shasta
Language codes
ISO 639-3	sht
Glottolog	shas1239

The Shasta language is an extinct Shastan language formerly spoken from northern California into southwestern Oregon. It was spoken in a number of dialects, possibly including Okwanuchu. By 1980, only two fluent speakers, both elderly, were alive. Today, all surviving Shasta people speak English.

Sounds

Consonants

		Bilabial	Dental	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Stop	ejective	pʼ	tʼ	tsʼ	tʃʼ	kʼ
	tenuis	p	t	ts	tʃ	k	ʔ
Fricative				s		x	h
Sonorant		m	n	r	j	w

Length is distinctive for consonants in Shasta. The affricates are generally written ⟨c⟩ and ⟨č⟩, and the ejectives indicated by an apostrophe written over the character. The phoneme /j/ is represented by ⟨y⟩.

Vowels

Shasta has four vowels, /i e a u/, with contrastive length, and two tones: high tone, marked with an acute accent, and low tone, which is unmarked.

References

• Mithun, Marianne (1999), The Languages of Native North America, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Bibliography

• Silver, Shirley (1966) The Shasta Language. University of California, Berkeley.

External links

• Shasta language overview at the Survey of California and Other Indian Languages
• Shasta basic lexicon at the Global Lexicostatistical Database
• OLAC resources in and about the Shasta language