Salinan language

Salinan
Native toUnited States
Regioncentral coast California
EthnicitySalinan people
Extinct1958
Hokan ?
  • Salinan
Dialects
  • Antoniaño
  • Migueleño
  • Playano?
Language codes
ISO 639-3sln
Glottologsali1253
Pre-contact distribution of Salinan language

Salinan is the historical indigenous language of the Salinan people of the central coast of California. It has been extinct since the death of the last speaker in 1958.

Narrative in Salinan recorded in 1910

The language is attested to some extent in colonial sources such as Sitjar (1860), but the principal published documentation is Mason (1918). The main modern grammatical study, based on Mason's data and on the field notes of John Peabody Harrington and William H. Jacobsen, is Turner (1987), which also contains a complete bibliography of the primary sources and discussion of their orthography.

Two dialects are recognized, Antoniaño and Migueleño, associated with the missions of San Antonio and San Miguel, respectively. Antoniaño is "sometimes also termed Sextapay, associated with the area of the Franciscan Mission of San Antonio de Padua in Monterey County."[1] There may have been a third, Playano dialect, as suggested by mention of such a subdivision of the people, but nothing is known of them linguistically.

  1. ^ "A Glossary of Proper Names in California Prehistory: Ethnolinguistic Groups". Society for California Archaeology. Archived from the original on March 28, 2012. Retrieved September 26, 2012.

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