The Chumash Languages Compared

The family resemblance Common prefixes
Related words   Some points of divergence
Vowel harmony    

The family resemblance Top

The Chumash languages are a family. The closest relatives are the Central Chumash languages Ventureño, Barbareño and Samala. Below are sets of words in four of the Chumash languages: Ventureño, Barbareño, Samala and Obispeño. These four were chosen for the following reasons:
They represent the maximum north-south range of Chumash territory.
They are all distinct languages rather than dialectal variants of one another. Barbareño and Samala share the greatest similarities, but are still different enough to qualify as separate languages, even though many items in these lists look identical.
They are the best recorded of the Chumash languages; we know considerably less about Purisimeño and the speech of the islands and the interior.
A blank in the charts below does not mean that the language in question lacks a word for that particular item, but rather that the word in that language was not related to the others in the set. For example, the words for "abalone" in Ventureño and Barbareño — qa and qai — are obviously very similar, while the Samala term taya bears no relation to them. In addition, a blank in the chart does not necessarily mean than that there is no such related word; it might be that the related word was simply not recorded or didn't appear in the sources that these lists are based on.
A glance at this chart shows you that Barbareño and Samala are the most closely related to each other.
Notice that Ventureño shows t where Barbareño and Samala have l — a glottalized "T" rather then glottalized "L"
Obispeño diverges more from the other Chumash languages, in vocabulary as well as structure. The many blanks in the Obispeño column of this chart are partly due to this divergence and partly the result of the much smaller body of Obispeño words that Harrington (and others) recorded. When Obispeño words do appear, they often show systematic differences, such as showing where the other languages have k.

Related words Top

  Ventureņo Barbareņo Samala Obispeņo
boat, canoe tomhol tomol tomol ?
bow ax ax ax aqa
eagle clow slow slow ?
fiesta, festival maxatam maxalami maxalam ?
flea ctep step step ?
hello haku haku haku hau
money alum anum alum  
now kp kp kp ip
people/inhabitant of atap- alap- alap- ?
river, creek utam ulam ulam limi
sweet mowhon mowon mowon ?
stand up kuta kuta kuta ?
thunder oxkoho(n) oxkon oxkon ?
         
all yila liya yila ?
one paket paka pakas ?
three masix masix masx mis
four ckumu skumu skumu skomo "eight"
eight malawa malawa malawa  
other, another cohoy coyni coyini ?
something big xax xax   —  

Vowel Harmony Top

The Chumash languages all show a tendency for the vowels within a word to match, especially the vowels a, e and o. This is called "vowel harmony." Some examples:

  Ventureņo Barbareņo Samala Obispeņo
a eight malawa malawa malawa  
  moon awhay away away tawa
  skunk taxama taxama taxama tqema
e tail teleq teleq teleq telhe
  tongue elew elew elew elhew
  sing expen expen expen  
o heel osos osos osos ososo
  to stand nowon nowon nowon  
  armpit tokolol toqolo toqolo tiqololo

Common Prefixes Top

All of the central Chumash languages make extensive use of prefixes with verbs. Dozens of different prefixes can modify the basic meaning of a verb root.
A series of several prefixes may accompany the verb, as the examples below show. Sometimes the prefix changes form depending on what sounds come after it. For example, the causative prefix su– becomes s– when it comes before a vowel.

qil– / xil– "in or involving water"
  Ventureño cqilmes "island," literally"it is across the water" cf. mes "to cross, be across"
  Barbareño   qinci "to drown" ci "to be sharp, acute"
  Samala   xiliwayan "to float" wayan "to hang"
tal– "with or by the hand
  Ventureño   talcmmn "to hold shut" cmmn "to purse"
  Barbareño   tansix "to squeeze, hold tightly" six "to do firmly/tightly"
  Samala   tosmon "to grasp/hold together" smon "to gather, be together"
su– or s– in the central languages, si- in Obispeņo, is a causative prefix; it indicates that something is causing the action of the verb to happen:
  Ventureño   succ "to sharpen" cc "to be sharp"
  Barbareño   sumutey "to bring s. near" mutey "to be near"
  Samala   siyc "to heat something" yc "to be hot"
  Obispeño   siqsa "to kill" qsa "to die"

Some points of divergence Top

You've probably noticed how closely the Central Chumash languages agree with one another, but they also differ in some striking ways.
  Ventureņo Barbareņo Samala Obispeņo
negative with verbs hu– sa– ini– / –ni– mi–
article with nouns si– / i– l– ma / ha ya–
who asku ayi kune  
and ki hika / ke na  

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