Yuki language

Yuki consisted of three dialects, from east to west: Round Valley Yuki, Huchnom (Clear Lake Yuki) and Coast Yuki. These were at least partially mutually intelligible, but are sometimes counted as distinct languages.Campbell 1997:132

These languages are categorized as (Northern) Yukian within the Yuki–Wappo family, which also includes the distant Wappo language. It is thought that the ancestor of the Yukian languages diverged from Wappo around 1500 {{sm|bce}}.{{cite book |last1=McCarthy |first1=Helen |title=Ethnography and Prehistory of the North Coast Range, California |date=1985 |publisher=University of California |page=26 |isbn=9789994127962 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=a4wWAQAAIAAJ |language=en}}

The three Yukian languages diverged from each other over the last one thousand years, while dialectal variations in Wappo are even more recent. The most likely catalyst or, at least, influence on the separation of Yukian and Wappo was the expansion of the Pomo, leading to pomoization of the Wappo language and physical separation between the Yuki and the Wappo tribes.{{cite book |last1=Jones |first1=Terry L. |last2=Klar |first2=Kathryn |last3=Archaeology |first3=Society for California |title=California Prehistory: Colonization, Culture, and Complexity |date=2007 |publisher=Rowman Altamira |isbn=978-0-7591-0872-1 |page=81 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fFX066QfQv8C&pg=PA81 |language=en |chapter=Yukian}}

An alveolar stop /t/ is an apico-alveolar stop articulated as [t̺].

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An extensive reference grammar of Yuki was published in 2016 and is based primarily on the texts and other notes recorded by Alfred L. Kroeber from Yuki speaker Ralph Moore in the first decade of the 20th century as well as elicited material recorded from other speakers later in the 20th century. This grammar also contains sketches of Huchnom and Coast Yuki based on the notes of Sydney Lamb and John Peabody Harrington, respectively.{{Cite book|title=Yuki Grammar with Sketches of Huchnom and Coast Yuki|chapter=Phonetics and Phonology|last=Balodis|first=Uldis|publisher=University of California Press|year=2016|isbn=9780520292192|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7z0lDQAAQBAJ}}

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Yuki had an octal (base-8) counting system, as the Yuki keep count by using the four spaces between their fingers rather than the fingers themselves.{{citation | title=Ethnomathematics: A Multicultural View of Mathematical Ideas | first=Marcia | last=Ascher|author-link= Marcia Ascher | year=1994 | publisher=Chapman & Hall | isbn=978-0-412-98941-4}} Yuki also had an extensive vocabulary for the plants of Mendocino County, California.{{cite book|last1=Chestnut | first1 =Victor King |title=Plants used by the Indians of Mendocino County, California|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vLkUAAAAYAAJ|access-date=24 August 2012|year=1902|publisher=Government Printing Office}}

{{Reflist}}

• {{Cite web

|title = Native American Audio Collections: Yuki

|work = American Philosophical Society

|url = http://www.amphilsoc.org/exhibit/natamaudio/yuki

|url-status = dead

|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20130505210428/http://www.amphilsoc.org/exhibit/natamaudio/yuki

|archive-date = 2013-05-05

}}

• [http://linguistics.berkeley.edu/~survey/languages/northern-yukian.php Northern Yukian language] overview at the Survey of California and Other Indian Languages
• [http://www.language-archives.org/language/yuk OLAC resources in and about the Yuki language]

{{Languages of California}}

Category:Indigenous languages of California

Category:Extinct languages of North America

Category:Languages extinct in the 20th century

Category:Yuki–Wappo languages

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