| Also Known As: Southern Maidu,Nishinam,Wapumni,Neeshenam,Pujuni
Description:
Nisenan (or alternatively, Southern Maidu, Neeshenam, Nishinam, Pujuni, or Wapumni) is a nearly extinct Maiduan language spoken by the Nisenan (or Southern Maidu, etc. as above) people of central California in the foothills of the Sierras, in the whole of the American, Bear and Yuba river drainages.
Ethnologue states that there is only one speaker left, however there a few other speakers left, though the number isn't known. However most speakers speak different dialects
There has recently been a small effort at language revival. Most notably the release of the "Nisenan Workbook" (three volumes so far) put out by Alan Wallace, which can be found at the California State Indian Museum in Sacramento and the Maidu Interpretive Center in Roseville.
As the Nisenan (like many of the Natives of central California) were not a single large tribe but a collection of independent "tribelets" (smaller tribes, as compared to Native groups in the east) which are grouped together primarily on linguistic similarity, there were many dialects to varying degrees of variation. This has led to some degree of inconsistency in the available linguistic data, primarily in regards to the phonemes; this is..... full article at Wikipedia |
