Tongva language facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Tongva
Gabrielino or Gabrieleño 'eyooshiraaw'
Native to	Southern California, United States
Region	Los Angeles, Santa Catalina Island
Ethnicity	Tongva
Extinct	ca. 1900
Language family	Uto-Aztecan Northern Uto-Aztecan Takic Serran Tongva
Linguist List	xgf
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The Tongva language (also known as Gabrielino or Gabrieleño) is an extinct Uto-Aztecan language formerly spoken by the Tongva, a Native American people who live in and around Los Angeles, California. It has not been a language of everyday conversation since the 1940s. The Gabrielino people now speak English but a few are attempting to revive their language by using it in everyday conversation and ceremonial contexts. Presently, Gabrielino is also being used in language revitalization classes and in some public discussion regarding religious and environmental issues. Tongva is closely related to Serrano.

The last fluent native speakers of Tongva lived in the early 20th century. The language is primarily documented in the unpublished field notes of John Peabody Harrington made during that time. The "J.P. Harrington Project", developed by the Smithsonian through UC Davis, approximately 6,000 pages of his notes on the Tongva language, were coded for documentation by a Tongva member, who took 3 years to accomplish the task. Alleged native speakers of Tongva who have died as late as in the 1970s have not been verified as having been fluent speakers.

Evidence of the language also survives in modern toponymy of Southern California, including Pacoima, Tujunga, Topanga, Azusa, Cahuenga in Cahuenga Pass and Cucamonga in Rancho Cucamonga. Additionally, the minor planet 50000 Quaoar was named after the Tongva creator god.

Language revitalization

The Gabrielino language is a subgroup of Takic, a subfamily of Uto-Aztecan, which is usually divided into three subgoups: Serrano-Kitanemuk, Gabrielino (including the Fernandeno dialect) and Cupan. As of 2012, members of the contemporary Tongva (Gabrieleño) tribal council are attempting to revive the language, by making use of written vocabularies, by comparison to better attested members of the Takic group to which Tongva belonged, and by offering classes.

In 2004, Pamela Munro, now UCLA emeritus professor of linguistics, was asked to serve as a linguistic mentor to Tongva people who wanted to learn about their language at the Breath of Life Workshop, a biennial event in Berkeley staged by the Advocates for Indigenous California Language Survival. Since then, she has taught monthly Tongva language classes in which adults and children practice pronunciation, master the use of grammatical particles, sing songs and play word games. She calls her work "a reclamation effort" for the language. Munro has compiled a Tongva dictionary of over 1,000 words, and also maintains a Tongva language Facebook page to which she posts Tongva words, phrases and songs. Munro says there are no audio recordings of people speaking the Tongva language, but that there are a few scratched wax cylinder recordings of Tongva songs.

Phonology

Mrs. James Rosemeyre (née Narcisa Higuera), photographed here in 1905, was one of the last fluent Tongva speakers. An informant for the ethnographer C. Hart Merriam, she was the source of the widely used endonym Tongva.

Consonants

The following is a list of the consonants and vowels of the Tongva language as used by the Tongva Language Committee, based on linguist Pamela Munro's interpretation of the fieldnotes of J. P. Harrington. In parentheses is the spelling of the specific sound. Note that there are multiple orthographies for the Tongva language.

Consonants /b d f ɡ/ are used in loanwords.

Vowels

Morphology

Tongva is an agglutinative language, where words use suffixes and multiple morphemes for a variety of purposes.

Vocabulary

The Lord's Prayer

The Lord's Prayer is called 'Eyoonak in Tongva. The following text was derived from old Mission records.

'Eyoonak

'Eyoonak, 'eyooken tokuupanga'e xaa;
hoyuuykoy motwaanyan;
moxariin mokiimen tokuupra;
maay mo'wiishme meyii 'ooxor 'eyaa tokuupar.

Hamaare, 'eyoone' maxaare' 'wee taamet,
koy 'oovonre' 'eyoomamaayntar momoohaysh, miyii 'eyaare
'oovonax 'eyoohiino 'eyooyha';
koy xaare' maayn 'iitam momoohaysh,
koy xaa mohuu'esh.
'Wee menee' xaa'e.

Collected by C. Hart Merriam (1903)

(Merriam refers to them as the Tongvā)

Numbers

1. Po-koo
2. Wěh-hā
3. Pah-hā
4. Wah-chah
5. Mah-har
6. Pah-vah-hā
7. Wah-chah-kav-e-ah
8. Wa-ha's-wah-chah
9. Mah-ha'hr-kav-e-ah
10. Wa-hās-mah-hah'r
11. Wa-hā's-mah-hah'r-koi-po-koo
12. Wa-hā's-mah-hah'r-koi-wěh-hā

grizzly bear

hoó-nahr

hoon-nah (subject)

hoon-rah (object)

black bear

pí-yah-hó-naht

Collected by Alexander Taylor (1860)

Numbers

1. po-koo
2. wa-hay
3. pa-hey
4. wat-sa
5. mahar
6. pawahe
7. wat-sa-kabiya
8. wa-hish-watchsa
9. mahar-cabearka
10. wa-hish-mar

Taylor claims "they do not count farther than ten"

Collected by Dr. Oscar Loew (1875)

Numbers

1. pu-gu'
2. ve-he'
3. pa'-hi
4. va-tcha'
5. maha'r
6. pa-va'he
7. vatcha'-kabya'
8. vehesh-vatcha'
9. mahar-kabya'
10. vehes-mahar
11. puku-hurura
12. vehe-hurura

bear

unar

Collected by Charles Wilkes, USN (1838-1842)

Numbers

1. pukū
2. wehē
3. pāhe
4. watsā

bear

hundr

Other sources

• desert fox: erow
• Pacoima = from the root word Pako enter, meaning the entrance
• Tujunga = from the root word old woman tux'uu Tujunga means Mountains of Health according to long-time residents.
• Azusa = from the word -shuuk 'Ashuuksanga = his grandmother

Toponymy

The table below gives the names of various missions in the Tongva language.