Yawelmani Yokuts

Yawelmani Yokuts (also spelled Yowlumne and Yauelmani) is an endangered dialect of Southern Valley Yokuts historically spoken by the Yokuts living along the Kern River north of Kern Lake in the Central Valley of California. Today, most Yawelmani speakers live on or near the Tule River Reservation.

Name
Academic sources frequently use the name Yawelmani while referring to the language, though tribe members more often use the name Yowlumne.

When referencing their language, modern speakers of Yawelmani use the terms inyana (Indian), and yaw'lamnin ṭeexil (speech of the Yowlumne).

Consonants

 * Sounds may be heard freely as retroflex  among speakers.

Vowels
Yawelmani has 10 vowel phonemes:


 * There are 4 short-long vowel pairs.
 * Short high vowels may become more centralized in fast speech:,.
 * Long high vowels are almost always lower than their short counterparts:,.
 * All long vowels may be shortened by a phonological process. Thus, a single long vowel has two different phonetic realizations:
 * Note that the high long vowel is usually pronounced the same as  and.
 * Note that the high long vowel is usually pronounced the same as  and.
 * Note that the high long vowel is usually pronounced the same as  and.
 * Note that the high long vowel is usually pronounced the same as  and.
 * Note that the high long vowel is usually pronounced the same as  and.

As can be seen, Yawelmani vowels have a number of different realizations (phones) which are summarized below:

Syllable & phonotactics
The Yawelmani syllables can be either a consonant-vowel sequence (CV), such as deeyi- 'lead', or a consonant-vowel-consonant sequence (CVC), such as xata- 'eat'. Thus the generalized syllable is the following:


 * CV(C)

Word roots are bisyllabic and have either one of two shapes:


 * CV.CV
 * CV.CVC

Vowel shortening
When long vowels are in closed syllables, they are shortened:




 * p̓axaat̕it
 * 'mourn (passive aorist)'
 * ( remains long)
 * p̓axat̕hin
 * 'mourn (aorist)'
 * ( is shortened)
 * c̓uyoohun
 * 'urinate (aorist)'
 * ( remains long)
 * c̓uyot
 * 'urinate (passive aorist)'
 * ( is shortened)
 * }
 * c̓uyoohun
 * 'urinate (aorist)'
 * ( remains long)
 * c̓uyot
 * 'urinate (passive aorist)'
 * ( is shortened)
 * }
 * c̓uyot
 * 'urinate (passive aorist)'
 * ( is shortened)
 * }
 * c̓uyot
 * 'urinate (passive aorist)'
 * ( is shortened)
 * }

Vowel harmony
Yawelmani has suffixes that contain either an underspecified high vowel or an underspecified non-high vowel.
 * Underspecified will appear as  following the high rounded vowel  and as  following all other vowels :




 * -hun/-hin
 * (aorist suffix)
 * muṭhun
 * 'swear (aorist)'
 * giy̓hin
 * 'touch (aorist)'
 * gophin
 * 'take care of infant (aorist)'
 * xathin
 * 'eat (aorist)'
 * }
 * giy̓hin
 * 'touch (aorist)'
 * gophin
 * 'take care of infant (aorist)'
 * xathin
 * 'eat (aorist)'
 * }
 * gophin
 * 'take care of infant (aorist)'
 * xathin
 * 'eat (aorist)'
 * }
 * xathin
 * 'eat (aorist)'
 * }
 * xathin
 * 'eat (aorist)'
 * }
 * }


 * Underspecified will appear as  following the non-high rounded vowel  and as  following all other vowels :




 * -tow/-taw
 * (nondirective gerundial suffix)
 * goptow
 * 'take care of infant (nondir. ger.)'
 * giy̓taw
 * 'touch (nondir. ger.)'
 * muṭtaw
 * 'swear (nondir. ger.)'
 * xattaw
 * 'eat (nondir. ger.)'
 * }
 * giy̓taw
 * 'touch (nondir. ger.)'
 * muṭtaw
 * 'swear (nondir. ger.)'
 * xattaw
 * 'eat (nondir. ger.)'
 * }
 * muṭtaw
 * 'swear (nondir. ger.)'
 * xattaw
 * 'eat (nondir. ger.)'
 * }
 * xattaw
 * 'eat (nondir. ger.)'
 * }
 * xattaw
 * 'eat (nondir. ger.)'
 * }
 * }

Vowel epenthesis
Yawelmani adds vowels to stems, when suffixes with an initial consonant are affixed to word with two final consonants in order to avoid a triple-consonant-cluster.

Case system
Yawelmani is a primary object language.

A. L. Krober documented the language's case system in his 1907 paper The Yokuts language of south central California.

Speakers
A 2011 estimate by Victor Golla placed the number of fluent and semi-fluent Yawelmani speakers at "up to twenty-five"

Revitalization efforts
In 1993, the Master-Apprentice Language Learning Program piloted a series of language programs that included Yawelmani. The program was reportedly effective in teaching conversational Yawelmani to tribal members without prior knowledge and increasing language use among elders.