Yahi was a dialect of the extinctYana language that was spoken in the upper Sacramento Valley area, roughly in the area between Mill Creek and Deer Creek. It is one of the southern dialects of Yana, which is a language isolate, though with possible connections to Hokan. Yana is known as having been the language of Ishi, the last surviving Yana Indian, who worked with anthropologists to make a record of the language and culture.
History
The last documented speaker of Yahi was a man called Ishi who caused a scientific stir when he made contact with the outside world in 1911, long after the Yahi had been assumed to be extinct. Together with the language, he died in 1916.[1]
Vocabulary
Yahi distinguishes male and female forms with male forms, frequently marked with the suffix -na, generally longer than female forms. Some examples are:[2]
^Parkvall, Mikael (2008). Limits of language: almost everything you didn't know you didn't know about language and languages. Wilsonville, Or: Battlebridge Publications. ISBN 978-1-59028-198-7.
^Kroeber, Theodora; Gannett, Lewis (1961). Ishi in two worlds: a biography of the last wild Indian in North America. Berkeley Los Angeles: University of California press. ISBN 978-0-520-00675-1.
^Kroeber, T. Ishi in two worlds Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984
^Sapir, E., Swadesh. M., Haas, M. Yana Dictionary University of California Press, 1960
