The Timbisha language (also called Panamint and spelled Tümpisa) is the language of the Native American people who inhabited the region in and around Death Valley, California in late prehistoric times. There are a few elderly individuals who can speak the language in California and Nevada, but none are monolingual and all use English regularly in their daily lives. Until the last decade of the twentieth century, the people called themselves and their language "Shoshone". The tribe then achieved Federal recognition under the name "Timbisha". This is an Anglicized spelling of the native name of Death Valley--tümpisa, pronounced [], which means "rock paint" and refers to the rich sources of red ochre in the valley.
Classification
Timbisha is one of the Central Numic languages of the Numic branch of Uto-Aztecan. It is most closely related to Shoshoni and Comanche.
Geographic distribution
Timbisha was formerly spoken in the region between the Sierra Nevada mountains of eastern California and the region just to the east of Death Valley in Nevada. Principal valleys where villages were located were (from west to east) Owens Valley, Indian Wells Valley , Saline Valley, Panamint Valley , and Death Valley. In addition, there were villages along the southern slopes of the Kawich Range in Nevada.
Dialects
Each valley had it's own variety of Timbisha with mostly lexical differences between them. There was, however a general loss of h as one moved west across Timbisha territory with h virtually gone in Owens Valley varieties. McLaughlin (1987) is based on the far eastern variety from Beatty, Nevada, while Dayley (1989a) is based on a central variety from Death Valley.
Sounds
Vowels
Timbisha also has a typical Numic vowel inventory consisting of i, ɨ, u, e, o, and a. In addition, there is the common unitary diphthong ai, which varies rather freely with e, although certain morphemes always contain ai and others always contain e.
Consonants
Timbisha has a typical Numic consonant inventory consisting of p, t, ts, k, kw, ʔ,s, h, m, n, ŋ, ŋw, w, and j.
Phonology
Timbisha stops (including the affricate) and nasals are voiced and lenited between vowels, are voiced in nasal-stop clusters, and are lenited (but not voiced) following h.
Voiceless vowels are not as common in Timbisha as they are in Shoshoni and Comanche.
Writing System
Timbisha spelling is based on Dayley (1989a, 1989b) and uses the Roman alphabet. Ü is used for ɨ and ng for ŋ.
Grammar
Work on Timbisha has been carried on by Jon Dayley and John McLaughlin, both of whom wrote grammatical descriptions (McLaughlin 1987, Dayley 1989a). Dayley has published a dictionary (Dayley 1989b).
Word Order and Case Marking
Timbisha word order is usually SVO as in taipo kinni'a punittai, 'white-man falcon saw', "The white man saw a falcon". The accusative case and possessive case are marked with suffixes. Adverbial relationships are marked with postpositions on nouns as well as with true adverbs. For example, kahni-pa'a, 'house-on', "on the house". Adjectives are usually prefixed to the nouns they modify, unless the relationship is temporary when they are independent words with special suffixes. Compare tosa-kapayu, 'white-horse', "palomino or other pale-colored breed" and tosapihtü kapayu, 'white/pale horse', "white or pale horse" (who happens to be white or pale, but whose siblings may be any color).
Verbs
Verbs are marked for grammatical aspect with suffixes. Valence is marked with both prefixes and suffixes. Some common intransitive verbs have suppletive forms for singular or plural subjects and some common transitive verbs have suppletive forms for singular or plural objects. Otherwise, there is no subject agreement or object agreement marked on the verb.
References
Dayley, Jon P. 1989a. Tümpisa (Panamint) Shoshone Grammar. University of California Publications in Linguistics Volume 115. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Dayley, Jon P. 1989b. Tümpisa (Panamint) Shoshone Dictionary. University of California Publications in Linguistics Volume 116. Berkeley: University of California Press.
McLaughlin, John E. 1987. Panamint Phonology and Morphology. University of Kansas PhD dissertation.
External Links
Ethnologue report for Panamint: [1]
