Tiipai language

Tiipai
Native toUnited States, Mexico
RegionCalifornia, Baja California
Ethnicity4,250 Kumeyaay (2016)[1]
Native speakers
100 (2007)[2]
Yuman
  • Core Yuman
    • Delta–California
      • Tiipai
Language codes
ISO 639-3dih (as part of Diegueño)
Glottologkumi1248
ELPTipai
The traditional geographic distribution of Tiipai speakers[3]
Tiipai is classified as Severely Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

Tiipai (Tipay) is a Native American language belonging to the Delta–California branch of the Yuman language family, which spans Arizona, California, and Baja California. As part of the Yuman family, Tiipai has also been consistently included in the controversial quasi-stock Hokan.[4] Tiipai is spoken by a number of Kumeyaay tribes in northern Baja California and southern San Diego County, California. There were, conservatively, 200 Tiipai speakers in the early 1990s;[5] the number of speakers has since declined steadily, numbering roughly 100 speakers in Baja California in a 2007 survey.

In the past, Tiipai and its neighbors to the north, Kumeyaay and Ipai, had been considered three dialects of a single Diegueño language—as a result, Tiipai is also known as Southern Diegueño. However, linguists now recognize that they represent at least three distinct language clusters within a speech variety continuum.[3][6] Tiipai itself is not a uniform speech variety, with borders that are far from clearcut and variations across towns such as Jamul, San José, and La Huerta.[3] Some suggest that it might be possible to recognize multiple languages within Tiipai.[7][8] On the other hand, despite a great deal of lexical variation, all varieties of Tiipai are mutually intelligible, meaning that it is a single language with a great deal of variation across communities. For a discussion of sociolinguistic motivation for this variation, see Field 2011.[9]

Loanwords are numerous in Tiipai—the majority are from Spanish, while a few come from English.[6] Published documentation of the Tiipai language includes a descriptive grammar of Jamul Tiipai,[6] a trilingual dictionary,[10] a trilingual book of stories and oral histories from Baja California Kumiai communities,[11] a word list,[12] and texts, including audio and video on the ELAR website.[6][13][14][15]

  1. ^ Hough, Eliza. "The Kumeyaay Communities of California". Smithsonian Folklife Festival. Smithsonian Institution.
  2. ^ Tiipai at Ethnologue (19th ed., 2016) Closed access icon
  3. ^ a b c Langdon, Margaret. 1990. "Diegueño: How Many Languages?" In Proceedings of the 1990 Hokan-Penutian Languages Workshop, edited by Redden, James E. pp. 184–190. University of Southern Illinois, Carbondale, IL.
  4. ^ Nichols, Johanna (1997). "Modeling Ancient Population Structures and Movement in Linguistics". Annual Review of Anthropology. 26: 359–384. doi:10.1146/annurev.anthro.26.1.359. ISSN 0084-6570. JSTOR 2952527.
  5. ^ Hinton, Leanne. 1994. Flutes of Fire: Essays on California Indian Languages. Berkeley, CA: Heyday Books.
  6. ^ a b c d Cite error: The named reference :0 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ^ Laylander, Don. 1985. "Some Linguistic Approaches to Southern California's Prehistory". San Diego State University Cultural Resource Management Casual Papers 2(1):14-58.
  8. ^ Mithun, Marianne. 1999. The Languages of Native North America. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.
  9. ^ Field, Margaret (2011). "Kumeyaay Language Variation, Group Identity, and the Land". International Journal of American Linguistics. 78 (4): 557–573. doi:10.1086/667451. S2CID 147262714 – via JSTOR.
  10. ^ Miller, Amy and Langdon, Margaret. 2008. Barona Inter-Tribal Dictionary: 'Iipay Aa Tiipay Aa Uumall. Lakeside, CA: Barona Museum Press.
  11. ^ Field, Margaret; et al. (2019). Footsteps From the Past into the Future: Kumeyaay Stories of Baja California (in English, Spanish, and Tiipay). San Diego, CA: SDSU Press.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: unrecognized language (link)
  12. ^ Meza Cuero, Jon and Meyer, Paula. 2008. Tipai Language-English-Spanish Word List. San Diego, CA: San Diego Unified School District.
  13. ^ Hinton, Leanne. 1976. The Tar Baby Story. In Yuman Texts, edited by Langdon, Margaret. International Journal of American Linguistics Native American Texts Series 1.3:101-106.
  14. ^ Hinton, Leanne. 1978. Coyote Baptizes the Chickens. In Coyote Stories, edited by Bright, William. International Journal of American Linguistics Native American Texts Series monograph 1:117-120.
  15. ^ "Documentation of the Baja California Yuman Languages Kumeyaay and Ko'alh".