Chochenyo language

Chochenyo
Čočeño, East Bay
Native to	United States (California)
Ethnicity	Chochenyo people
Extinct	1934, with the death of José Guzmán
Revival	early 2000s
Language family	Yok-Utian Utian Ohlone Northern San Francisco Bay Chochenyo
Writing system	Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-3	(included in cst [cst])
Glottolog	east2548
ELP	San Francisco Bay Costanoan (shared)
Map of Chochenyo varieties

Chochenyo (also called Chocheño, Northern Ohlone and East Bay Costanoan) is the spoken language of the Chochenyo people. Chochenyo is one of the Ohlone languages in the Utian family.

Description and history

Linguistically, Chochenyo, Tamyen and Ramaytush are thought to have been dialects of a single language, but Tamyen and Ramaytush are very poorly attested. The speech of the last two native speakers of Chochenyo was documented in the 1920s in the unpublished fieldnotes of the Bureau of American Ethnology linguist John Peabody Harrington. The final native speaker of the language was José Guzmán who died in 1934 in Niles, California.

Vincent Medina presents in Chochenyo at the San Francisco Public Library

The Muwekma Ohlone Tribe, which (as of 2007) is petitioning for U.S. federal recognition, has made efforts to revive the language. As of 2004, "the Chochenyo database being developed by the tribe ... [contained] from 1,000 to 2,000 basic words." By 2009, many students were able to carry on conversations in the Chochenyo language. Through both successful word formation, as well as extending documented words, the Chochenyo dictionary has grown significantly throughout the early 21st century. During the canonization of Saint Junípero Serra on September 23, 2015, the first reading at Mass was read in Chochenyo by Vincent Medina.

Phonology

Consonants

		Labial	Dental/ alveolar		Retroflex	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
			hard	soft
Nasal		m ⟨m⟩	n ⟨n⟩	nʲ ⟨nY⟩
Plosive		p ⟨p⟩	t ⟨t⟩		ʈ ⟨ṭ⟩		k ⟨k⟩	ʔ ⟨'⟩
Affricate			ts ⟨ts⟩			tʃ ⟨č⟩
Fricative			s ⟨s⟩			ʃ ⟨š⟩	x ⟨x⟩	h ⟨h⟩
Approximant		w ⟨w⟩	l ⟨l⟩			j ⟨y⟩
Flap			ɾ ⟨r⟩

Vowels

	Front	Back
Close	i	u
Close-mid		o
Open-mid	ɛ
Open		ɑ

The vowels can be long or short. Prolongation is shown by repeating the vowel.

• oo is pronounced /oː/, not /uː/

External links

• Chocheyno, California Language Archive
• Chochenyo language overview at the Survey of California and Other Indian Languages
• Chochenyo revitalization – language at UCB "Faith in Words" 2004 [archived version]
• Muwekma Ohlone Tribe website
• The Little Tribe That Could