Table Of ContentA COMPARATIVE STUDY OF YUMAN CONSONANTISM
JANUA LINGUARUM
STUDIA MEMORIAE
NICOLAI VAN WIJK DEDICATA
edenda curat
C. H. VAN SCHOONEVELD
INDIANA UNIVERSITY
SERIES PRACTICA
57
0J
1968
MOUTON
THE HAGUE · PARIS
A COMPARATIVE STUDY
OF
YUMAN CONSONANTISM
by
ALAN CAMPBELL WARES
SUMMER INSTITUTE OF LINGUISTICS
m
1968
MOUTON
THE HAGUE · PARIS
© Copyright 1968 in The Netherlands.
Mouton & Co. Ν.V., Publishers, The Hague.
No part of this book may be translated or reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm,
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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER 68-15540
Printed in the Netherlands by Mouton & Co., Printers, The Hague.
PREFACE
This study has grown out of a routine linguistic survey that was made in 1953 to
determine the number and size of Indian groups in the northern region of Lower
California. Word lists that were made at that time were filed away and almost
forgotten until Werner Winter saw them and urged that they be used for such a study
as this.
No attempt has been to reconstruct Proto-Yuman forms, and the vocalic system
has been treated only briefly, but it is hoped that students of comparative Yuman will
find sufficient data here to enable them to arrive at conclusions of their own as regards
reconstructed forms.
Although I am grateful to a number of individuals — colleagues of the Summer
Institute of Linguistics and professors of the University of Texas — for comments
and constructive criticism as this study was taking shape, I am especially thankful to
Werner Winter, without whose encouragement this may never have been written.
In addition, I wish to acknowledge the willing help of my wife, Iris Mills Wares,
in the laborious job of proofreading these pages.
Mexico City ALAN C. WARES
November, 1965
CONTENTS
Preface 5
I. The Yuman Family of Languages 9
II. Sources of Language Data 19
III. General Features of Yuman Languages 22
IV. The Phonemes of Walapai 27
V. The Phonemes of Mohave 31
VI. The Phonemes of Maricopa 35
VII. The Phonemes of Cocopa 37
Vili. The Phonemes of Diegueño 39
IX. The Phonemes of Tipai 41
X. The Phonemes of Paipai 43
XI. The Phonemes of Kiliwa 46
ΧΠ. Classification of Yuman Languages 49
XIII. Proto-Yuman Phonology 53
XIV. Comparative Yuman Vocabulary 77
Bibliography 97
Territory of Yuman Tribes
I. THE YUMAN FAMILY OF LANGUAGES
The Yuman Indian languages are spoken by a group of tribes scattered over an area
approximately 400 miles long from north to south, and 300 miles wide. The limits of
this area are the Grand Canyon in northern Arizona on the north and the Valley of the
Trinity in Lower California on the south; the vicinity of San Diego, California, on the
west and the Mescal Mountains of Arizona on the east. Formerly the territory
covered by the Yuman tribes extended farther into the Lower California peninsula,
but the southern boundary has receded as tribes have become extinct or have merged
into the Mexican mestizo culture.1 Since the present work is based largely on contem-
porary data, only a passing reference will be made to these and other which have lost
their identity through assimilation or extinction.
The designation "Yuman" as applied to these tribes comes from the term "Yuma"
which was given to one of the tribes of this group by the Spanish explorers and possibly
at an earlier time by the Pima and Papago. Swanton ascribes it to the Pima and
Papago in the first place,2 but Forde raises the question as to whether the name origi-
nated with the Pima and Papago or with the Spaniards.3 The Yumas call themselves
/kwacá-n/, a name analyzed as meaning "those who descend (in a group)".4 According
to Halpern, their present-day speech community is not differentiated dialectically.6
The territory occupied by this tribe is described by Swanton as being "on both sides
1 Gifford, Edward Winslow, The Cocopa (UCPAAE, 1933), p. 257.
4 Swanton, John R., The Indian Tribes of North America (BAE, 1952), p. 369.
* "The origin of the term Yuma is doubtful. The statements that it was derived from terms for 'son
of the chief' or 'sons of the river', were always improbable and have been disproved by inquiries.
Ten Kate was informed by the Pima that their native name for the Yuma was Yum. This was con-
firmed by A. L. Pinart, a resident among the Papago, in a letter to Gatschet in which he stated that
the Pima would call both a Yuma and a Comoye'i (Kamia and (?) Diegueño) man i'um o'otam; the
Papago, according to his information, call both the Yuma and the Maricopa 'yum' while an 'Apache-
Mohave' (Yavapai) whom he questioned also used the term 'Yum' and did not know the term
'kutcha'n'. Heintzleman, 1854, apparently used the word 'Yum' in reference to the Kamya alone
('New River Indians'), calling the Yuma 'Kuchan'. Without some investigation of the occurrence
and associations of the term 'Yum' among the Pima, Papago, and other tribes, the question cannot,
however, be considered settled. The Spaniards were already using the term Yuma in the eighteenth
century and it still remains possible that they introduced it among the Pima and others where it
supplanted earlier usage." Forde, C. Daryll, Ethnography of the Yuma Indians (UCPAAE, 1938),
p. 89.
4 Halpern, Abraham M., "Yuma" in I J AL, 13 (1947), p. 105.
1 UAL, 12 (1946), p. 25.
