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Language Lineage

Numic

Shoshone, Comanche, Paiute, Ute and Mono, which developed 'consonant gradation': a consonant inside a word appears as a fricative, a double consonant or a nasal cluster, depending on the morpheme before it.

c. 1st millennium CE – presentThe Great Basin (Nevada, Utah, Idaho, eastern California, Oregon), and through the Comanche the southern Plains
On this page
  1. Across the Great Basin
  2. Comanche
  3. Reservations and Revival
  4. Where it's spoken
  5. Turning points

01

Across the Great Basin

The Numic languages cover almost the whole Great Basin, the vast desert between the Rockies and the Sierra Nevada. Their three subgroups (Western, Central and Southern Numic) each run in a narrow wedge from a small area in southeastern California out across the Basin. In 1958 Sydney Lamb explained the pattern as a rapid spread outward from that corner of California, perhaps around 1000 CE, which replaced earlier populations. His 'Numic spread' hypothesis is still debated by archaeologists.

Numic consonants behave in an unusual way. Depending on the morpheme before it, a consonant may surface as a fricative, a geminate or a nasal cluster. Linguists call this 'consonant gradation' or 'final features'.

02

Comanche

Around 1700, a group of Shoshone who had acquired horses broke away onto the southern Plains and became the Comanche. Within a few generations they dominated a vast region from Colorado to Texas, and Comanche became a trade language of the southern Plains. In the Second World War, Comanche code talkers served as radio operators for the US Army.

03

Reservations and Revival

Reservation life and boarding schools in the late 19th and 20th centuries, where children were punished for speaking their languages, broke transmission in most Numic communities. The Native American Languages Act of 1990 reversed official US policy and declared support for Native languages. Numic communities now run classes, immersion camps and dictionary projects.

On the map

Where it’s spoken

Spoken todayShading marks whole countries, not the regions within them.
  1. United StatesA few thousand at most

Figures are rough first-language estimates, rounded, from censuses and Ethnologue. Counts for small or scattered communities are especially uncertain.

Rings along the limb

Turning points

Oldest first.

  1. Sound lawProto-Numic periodContested

    Numic consonant gradation

    medial C → fricative · geminate · nasal cluster, set by the preceding morpheme ('final features')

    Medial consonants alternate between fricative, geminate and nasalised forms, depending on the preceding morpheme, after old final consonants were lost and left their mark on the next word. It is the most distinctive feature of Numic phonology.

    Compare with other weakening and voicing across families →

    Sources (1)
    • Campbell, Lyle. 1997. American Indian Languages: The Historical Linguistics of Native America. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  2. Splitc. 1000 CEContested

    The Numic spread

    Numic speakers fan out from southeastern California across the Great Basin, and Western, Central and Southern Numic diverge. Lamb's hypothesis explains the wedge-shaped map, but archaeologists still dispute the timing and whether earlier peoples were replaced.

    Sources (1)
    • Lamb, Sydney M. 1958. Linguistic prehistory in the Great Basin. International Journal of American Linguistics 24(2).
  3. Splitc. 1700

    The Comanche break away

    Mounted on horses acquired from the Spanish colonies, a Shoshone group moves onto the southern Plains, becomes the Comanche, and develops a separate language.

    Sources (1)
    • Campbell, Lyle. 1997. American Indian Languages: The Historical Linguistics of Native America. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  4. Contactc. 1880 – 1960s

    Reservations and boarding schools

    US policy sends Native children to English-only boarding schools and confines communities to reservations, and most Numic languages stop being passed on to children.

    Sources (1)
    • Campbell, Lyle. 1997. American Indian Languages: The Historical Linguistics of Native America. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  5. Revitalization1990

    Native American Languages Act

    The US Congress declares a policy of preserving and promoting Native American languages, reversing a century of suppression. Tribal language programmes grow in the decades that follow.

    Sources (1)
    • Hinton, Leanne & Ken Hale, eds. 2001. The Green Book of Language Revitalization in Practice. San Diego: Academic Press.