![]() Proto-Numic had an inventory of five vowels. The sound system of Numic is set forth in the following tables. Recent lexical and grammatical diffusion studies in Western Numic have shown that while there are clear linguistic changes that separate Northern Paiute as a distinct linguistic variety, there are no unique linguistic changes that mark Mono as a distinct linguistic variety. The Comanche language and the Shoshoni language are quite similar although certain low-level consonant changes in Comanche have inhibited mutual intelligibility. Changes in their Shoshoni dialect eventually produced Comanche. Distribution of Uto-Aztecan languages in present-day Western United States at the time of first European contact/invasion showing various Numic languages.īands of eastern Shoshoni split off from the main Shoshoni body in the very late 17th or very early 18th century and moved southeastward onto the Great Plains. David Shaul has proposed that the Southern Numic languages spread eastward long before the Central and Western Numic languages expanded into the Great Basin. Jones thinks this evidence to be of a circumstantial nature, but this is a distinctly minority opinion among specialists in Numic. A mitochondrial DNA study from 2001 supports this linguistic hypothesis. Fowler's reconstruction of Proto-Numic ethnobiology also points to the region of the southern Sierra Nevada as the homeland of Proto-Numic approximately two millennia ago. This view is supported by lexicostatistical studies. Some linguists have taken this pattern as an indication that Numic speaking peoples expanded quite recently from a small core, perhaps near the Owens Valley, into their current range. Northern Paiute (a dialect chain with main regional varieties being Southern Nevada, Northern Nevada, Oregon, and Bannock )Īpart from Comanche, each of these groups contains one language spoken in a small area in the southern Sierra Nevada and valleys to the east (Mono, Timbisha, and Kawaiisu), and one language spoken in a much larger area extending to the north and east (Northern Paiute, Shoshoni, and Colorado River).Mono (two main dialects: Eastern and Western ).Colorado River (a dialect chain with main regional varieties being Chemehuevi, Southern Paiute, and Ute ). ![]()
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