thumb|Klamath River in California

Karuk or Karok ( or ) is the traditional language of the Karuk people in the region surrounding the Klamath River, in Northwestern California. The name 'Karuk' is derived from the Karuk word , meaning "upriver".

Karuk is classified as severely endangered by UNESCO with only around 12 fluent native speakers of the language left. Most members of the Karuk nation now use English in their everyday lives. Since 1949, there have been efforts to revitalize the language and increase the number of speakers led by linguists such as Dr. William Bright and Susan Gehr, as well as members of the Karuk community.

History and usage

The Karuk language originated around the Klamath River between Seiad Valley and Bluff Creek. Before European contact, it is estimated that there may have been up to 1,500 speakers. A standardized system for writing the languages was adopted in the 1980s. In 1848, gold was discovered in California, and thousands of Europeans came to the Klamath River and its surrounding region to search for gold.

Geographic distribution

Karuk is spoken within the range of the original territory where the Karuk people lived prior to European contact. The ancestral territory is in Northwestern California in Siskiyou, Humboldt, and Del Norte counties. The language originated around the Klamath River between Seiad Valley and Bluff Creek. Most Karuk speakers now live in the towns of Somes Bar, which is near the Karuk Center of the World (in Karuk, "Katimiin"), Happy Camp ("Athithufvuunupma"), and Orleans ("Panamniik"). In 1887, some members of the Karuk tribe were given small plots of land under the General Allotment Act.

Consonants

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;"

!

! Bilabial

! Labio-<br>dental

! Dental

! Alveolar

!Palatal

! Velar

! Glottal

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! Nasal

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! Stop

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! Fricative

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|()

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! Flap

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! Approximant

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Karuk has 16 phonemic consonants (all of them with no voicing contrast), a small number compared to the relatively large consonant inventories of most California languages.

! Description

!IPA

! Spelling

|-

| high-falling tone

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| style="text-align: center;" |âa

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| high tone

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| style="text-align: center;" |á áa

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| low tone

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| style="text-align: center;" |a aa

|}

Syllable structure

When /i u/ occur next to one another in a word, whichever is the first vowel is pronounced as a glide, as in the following examples.

{| class="wikitable"

!First Vowel

!Glide Transition

!English Translation

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|fishery

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|soap plant

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|nut of a giant chinquapin

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Note: Syllabification in these examples is from right to left.

! colspan="4" | Spelling

! rowspan="2" | Phoneme

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! Modern

! Bright

! Harrington <br />(typed)

! Harrington <br />(notes)

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| colspan="4" style="text-align: center;" | p

| style="text-align: center;" |

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| colspan="4" style="text-align: center;" | t

| style="text-align: center;" |

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| style="text-align: center;" | ch

| style="text-align: center;" | č

| colspan="2" style="text-align: center;" | tc

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| colspan="4" style="text-align: center;" | k

| style="text-align: center;" |

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| style="text-align: center;" | ʼ

| style="text-align: center;" | ʔ

| style="text-align: center;" | ʼ ? ʔ

| style="text-align: center;" | ʼ ʔ

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| colspan="4" style="text-align: center;" | f

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| style="text-align: center;" | th

| colspan="3" style="text-align: center;" | θ

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| colspan="4" style="text-align: center;" | s

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|-

| style="text-align: center;" | sh

| style="text-align: center;" | š

| colspan="2" style="text-align: center;" | cc

| style="text-align: center;" |

|-

| colspan="3" style="text-align: center;" | x

| style="text-align: center;" | q

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| colspan="2" style="text-align: center;" | h

| colspan="2" style="text-align: center;" | h ʼ

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| colspan="4" style="text-align: center;" | v

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| colspan="4" style="text-align: center;" | r

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| colspan="4" style="text-align: center;" | y

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| colspan="4" style="text-align: center;" | m

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| colspan="4" style="text-align: center;" | n

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! Modern

! Bright

! Harrington <br />(typed)

! Harrington <br />(notes)

! Phoneme

|}

In two-consonant sequences [sh] or [th] are distinguished from the digraphs ⟨sh th⟩ which represent the single phonemes with the use of a hyphen .

Vowels

Long vowels are represented by doubling the letters: ⟨ii⟩, ⟨aa ⟩ and ⟨uu⟩ are used for /iː/ /aː/ and /uː/.

Tones are marked for vowels in Karuk using accent marks. The high and falling tones are represented using the acute and circumflex diacritics, respectively, above the vowels. The low tone is not represented, and tones on long vowels are notated only on the first letter in the digraph.

Grammar

Karuk is a polysynthetic language known for its method of arranging old and new information: "... skilled Karuk speakers use separate words to communicate new, salient detail, or to underscore known detail; and they use affixes for background details so that a listener's attention is not diverted."

Morphology

Karuk is similar to many other American Indian Languages in showing "a complex person-marking system, where subject and object are marked in portmanteau prefixes"

Verbs

Karuk uses prefixes and suffixes in a way William Bright relates to how English words snort, sniff, and sneeze all start with a sn-. The following are examples of prefixes in Karuk.

{| class="wikitable"

!Karuk

!English Translation

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|im-

|involving heat or fire

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|impat

|'to become broken due to heat'

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|imchak

|'to get burnt'

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|imchax

|'to be hot'

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|ʼak-

|with the hand

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|ʼaknup

|'to thump'

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|ʼaktuṽ

|'to pluck at'

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|ʼakxárap

|'to scratch'

|}

Words and phrases

{| class="wikitable"

|+From Dr. William Bright's research

!Karuk

!English Translation

|-

|xâatik vaa ukupítih

|Let it do that

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|kári xás pihnêefich upiip, pûuhara.

|Then coyote said, "no."

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|pihnêefich

|coyote

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|túuyship

|mountain

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|koovúra yúruk kámvuunupahitih.

|Let it all flow downstream.

|}

Note: More translations can be found online in the Dictionary section depicting Dr. Bright's research.

{| class="wikitable"

|+From Phil Albers, Jr.'s work

!Karuk

!English Translation

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|hãa

|yes

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|pûuhara

|no

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|taʼávahiv

|time to eat

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|íikam

|it's time to go outside

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|kaʼíru

|be quiet/quiet down

|}

Revitalization efforts

Work by Dr. William Bright and Susan Gehr

Dr. William Bright started studying the Karuk language in 1949 in pursuit of his doctorate in linguistics at U.C Berkeley. Bright was met with open arms by tribal elders and was given the Karuk name Uhyanapatánvaanich, or "little word-asker". Bright set himself apart from linguists from his time for incorporating elements of the cultural context of Karuk into his descriptions.

Bright later worked with Susan Gehr, a tribe member and fellow linguist, on a Karuk dictionary, which was published in 2005.

Revival through education

American Indian Bilingual Teacher Credential Program

In the late 1980s, Humboldt State University started the "American Indian Bilingual Teacher Credential Program", where they brought in teachers from four local tribes, the Hupa, Yurok, Karuk, and Tolowa. These teachers were bilingual in their tribe's native language as well as English, and would be employed in local public schools to teach American Indian children. The university developed this initiative to help local American Indian populations either further develop their English for higher education or develop their native language to preserve culture. Bilingual teachers in both Karuk and English would teach at Orleans and Happy Camp Elementary Schools, where children would learn how to live in America while keeping their identity. The committee was advised by Dr. William Bright and tribal member Julian Lang, a dedicated researcher of the language. Their studies suggest that the decline of the language is caused by a combination of a lack of younger fluent speakers, a decline in the number of speakers, not being typically taught at home at young ages, a feeling of disconnect between its use and the contemporary world, and the lack of literacy in the language among tribal members.

References

Further reading

  • Karuk Language Resources
  • Karuk Dictionary and Texts

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  • Traditional Karuk Songs Audio Gallery
  • Karuk language Overview at the Survey of California and Other Indian Languages
  • Karuk language dictionary online from IDS (select simple or advanced browsing)
  • Karuk basic lexicon at the Global Lexicostatistical Database
  • Live Your Language Alliance (LYLA) Working to speak and understand the traditional languages of the Tolowa, Karuk, Yurok, Hupa, Tsnungwe, Wiyot, Mattole, and Wailaki people.
  • OLAC resources in and about the Karuk language
  • Susan Gehr
  • The Karuk Language Restoration Committee
  • Julian Lang
  • Ancestral Territory Map by Susan Gehr
  • Karok (Intercontinental Dictionary Series)