Cahuilla language facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Cahuilla
Ivilyuat
Pronunciation	[ʔivɪʎʊʔat]
Native to	United States
Region	Southern California
Ethnicity	3,000—5,000 Cahuilla
Native speakers	6  (2011)e23
Language family	Uto-Aztecan Northern Uto-Aztecan Cupan Cahuilla–Cupeño Cahuilla
Dialects	Desert Mountain Pass
Writing system	Latin, NAPA
Official status
Recognised minority language in	None
Regulated by	None
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The Cahuilla language, also called Ivilyuat, is a very old language spoken by the Cahuilla people. They live in southern California, in places like the Coachella Valley and San Jacinto Mountains. The Cahuilla people call their language Ivilyuat or Ivia. They call themselves ʔívil̃uwenetem, which means "speakers of Ivilyuat."

Sadly, Cahuilla is an endangered language. This means very few people speak it today. In 2011, only about 6 people were fluent speakers. Most of these speakers are older, and the language is not often taught to children. Because of this, the language is considered "critically endangered" by UNESCO, an organization that helps protect important things around the world.

There are three main ways the Cahuilla language is spoken, called dialects: Desert, Mountain, and Pass.

What is the Cahuilla Language Family?

Cahuilla belongs to a big language family called Uto-Aztecan. Think of a language family like your own family tree. Uto-Aztecan is a large branch, and Cahuilla is a smaller branch within it.

Cahuilla is closely related to another language called Cupeño. Together, they form a group called Cupan languages. These languages are part of an even larger group of languages found in California, including Serrano and Luiseño.

How Do Cahuilla Words Sound?

The sounds of a language are called its phonology. Cahuilla has its own special set of consonant and vowel sounds. Some sounds might be different from English!

For example, Cahuilla has sounds like ʔ (a glottal stop, like the sound in "uh-oh") and ʎ (a palatal lateral, like the "ll" in some Spanish words).

Voiceless Vowels

One interesting thing about Cahuilla is that some vowels can be "voiceless." This means you whisper them or don't make a sound with your vocal cords. This often happens at the end of words or near the ʔ sound.

For example:

• múwt (owl) sounds like [múwtʊ̥h]
• nét (ceremonial chief) sounds like [nétɛ̥h]

Word Structure and Stress

Cahuilla words never start with a vowel. Also, how you say a word can change its meaning. This is called "stress." In Cahuilla, stress usually falls on the first part of a word.

How Does Cahuilla Grammar Work?

Cahuilla is an agglutinative language. This means words are built by adding many small parts, called affixes, to a main word. These affixes can be added at the beginning (prefixes) or end (suffixes) of a word. They change the word's meaning or its job in a sentence.

For example, the word for 'arrow' in Cahuilla is húyal. This word comes from húya, which means 'it is straightened'. So, húyal literally means 'that which is straightened'. This shows how Cahuilla often describes things by what they do or what they are like.

Nouns and How They Change

In Cahuilla, nouns (words for people, places, or things) can change their form. This helps show if something is "possessed" (like "my eye") or just a general thing (like "the eye").

Nouns can also change to show if there is one of something (singular) or many (plural). This is usually done by adding suffixes like -m or -em. For example, táxliswet means 'the Indigenous person', and táxliswetem means 'the Indigenous people'.

Verbs and Actions

Cahuilla verbs (action words) also change a lot. They show who is doing the action and who the action is being done to. This is done by adding prefixes and suffixes.

Unlike English, Cahuilla verbs don't focus much on when something happened (past, present, future). Instead, they focus on the "aspect" of the action. This means whether the action is completed, ongoing, or expected to happen.

Word Order

In Cahuilla, the usual word order is Subject-Object-Verb (SOV). This means the person or thing doing the action comes first, then the thing the action is done to, and finally the action itself. For example, in English we say "I eat apples" (Subject-Verb-Object). In Cahuilla, it would be more like "I apples eat."

Classifiers: Describing Nouns

Cahuilla uses special words called "classifiers." These are like extra words that tell you more about the type of noun you're talking about. It's like saying "a slice of bread" instead of just "bread."

For example, there are different classifiers for:

• General, non-living things (like -ʔa)
• Trees, plants, and their fruits (like kíʔiwʔa for things found in groups, or wésʔa for planted items)
• Different kinds of meat (roasted, melted, barbecued)
• Animals, especially pets (using ʔaš)

One interesting classifier is kíl̃iw, which was used for marriage partners. The Cahuilla people were divided into two groups, or "moieties": the Coyote (ʔísil̃) and the Wildcat (túkut). People had to marry someone from the other group. So, ne-kíl̃iw meant 'my partner', and you might say túkut ne-kíl̃iw ('my Wildcat partner').

Cahuilla Vocabulary

Most Cahuilla words come from its Uto-Aztecan roots. It also shares many words with nearby languages like Luiseño. Over time, Cahuilla adopted many words from Spanish, like máys (corn) from Spanish maíz, or ʔavugáaduʔ (lawyer) from Spanish abogado. It has very few words borrowed from English.

Sample Words

Here are some basic words in Cahuilla and how they compare to related languages:

Cahuilla Place Names

Many places in California once had Cahuilla names, but over time, English or Spanish names took over. Here are some examples of original Cahuilla place names:

• Káviñiš, Qàwal hémaʔ, and Pàl síwiš – these were all names for Indian Wells
• Séx – Palm Springs
• Kíš čáwal – White Water
• Pàl téwet – Indio
• Wìyal ʔámuyka – Torres Peak
• Yamesével – Mission Creek
• Qáwiš húlawet (Mountain dialect: Qáwiš yúlawet) – near La Quinta

How is Cahuilla Written?

For a long time, Cahuilla was mostly a spoken language, not a written one. Today, there are ways to write it down using special systems like the NAPA (North American Phonetic Alphabet). However, there isn't one single writing system that everyone agrees on for the whole Cahuilla Nation.

One common way to write Cahuilla is a modified version of NAPA, which has 35 letters. It uses marks over vowels to show how words are stressed.

Efforts to Keep Cahuilla Alive

Many people are working hard to save and bring back the Cahuilla language.

Alvin Siva (who passed away in 2009) was a fluent speaker. He helped preserve the tribe's traditional bird songs, which are sung in Cahuilla, by teaching them to younger generations. Katherine Siva Saubel (1920-2011) was another important native Cahuilla speaker who worked to preserve the language.

In 2014, the University of California, Riverside started offering free workshops to teach Cahuilla. Later, in 2020, they began offering full courses in the language for university students and members of the Cahuilla community. These efforts are very important for keeping the language alive for future generations.

Images for kids

See also

In Spanish: Idioma cahuilla para niños