Hupa language

Hupa (native name: Na:tinixwe Mixine:whe', lit. "language of the Hoopa Valley people") is an Athabaskan language (of Na-Dené stock) spoken along the lower course of the Trinity river in Northwest California by the Hupa (Na:tinixwe), and before European contact by the Chilula and Whilkut peoples to the west.

Speakers

The 2000 US Census estimated the language to be spoken by 64 persons between the ages of 5 and 17, including 4 monolingual speakers. As of 2012, there are fewer than 10 individuals whose Hupa could be called fluent, at least one of whom (Verdena Parker) is a fully fluent bilingual. Perhaps another 50 individuals of all ages have restricted control of traditional Hupa phonology, grammar and lexicon. Beyond this, many tribal members share a small vocabulary of words and phrases of Hupa origin.

Phonology

Vowels may be lengthened.

Orthography

The Hupa alphabet is as follows:

Morphology

Verb themes and classes

As with other Dene languages, the Hupa verb is based around a theme. Melissa Axelrod has defined a theme as “the underlying skeleton of the verb to which prefixes or strings of prefixes or suffixal elements are added in producing an utterance. The theme itself has a meaning and is the basic unit of the Athabaskan verbal lexicon.” In addition to a verb stem, a typical theme consists of a classifier, one or more conjunct prefixes, and one or more disjunct prefixes.