Hometwoli dialect facts for kids

Hometwoli (also known as Humetwadi) was a special way of speaking, or a dialect, of the Buena Vista Yokuts language. People spoke Hometwoli in the southern part of the Tulare Basin in California. This area was close to Kern Lake.

What Does Hometwoli Mean?

The name Hometwoli means "Southerners." It is a different way of saying "Homtinin." Many different Yokuts groups used the word "Homtinin" to talk about their neighbors who lived to the south.

How Hometwoli Was Spoken

Hometwoli was unique because of its sounds. It was the only dialect of Buena Vista Yokuts that used certain central vowel sounds. These are special sounds made with your tongue in the middle of your mouth.

Counting in Hometwoli

The Hometwoli language had a very interesting way of counting. It was different from other Yokutsan languages. For example, the word for "six" in Hometwoli was not like the word for "six" in other dialects.

Instead, the Hometwoli word for "six" sounded a lot like the word for "nine" in other Yokutsan dialects. This makes some experts think that Hometwoli might have used a base six counting system. This means they might have counted in groups of six, instead of groups of ten like we do today.