Language name and locationː Achumawi, California state, USA [Refer to Ethnologue]

语言名称和分布地区: 阿丘马维语, 美国加州东北部

1. ham͗ís

2. haq͗, haq͗can

3. c͗ásti

4. hat·á·má

5. lát·íw

6. át·íwáté ham͗ís (ˀ)a·yéq͗ti; Lát·íwáté ham͗ísa·tú·m͗i

7. át·íwáté c͗ásti a·yéq͗ti; Lát·íwáté c͗ásti a·tú·m͗i

8. lát·íwáté haq͗ a·yéq͗ti; hat·á·mílíl; lát·íwáté haq͗ a·tú·m͗i

9. lát·íwáté hat·á·má a·yéq͗ti; lát·íwáté hat·á·má a·tú·m͗i

10. malús·i

11. malús·iyáté ham͗ís (ˀ)a·yéq͗ti

12. malús·iyáté haq͗ a·yéq͗ti

13. malús·iyáté c͗ásti a·yéq͗ti; c͗ásti a·tú·m͗i

The number for 13 includes a second form c͗ásti a·tú·m͗i. It should include the initial compound malús·iyáté, which means "added to 10"; and indeed all the numbers from 10 to 15 have a second form with a·tú·m͗i substituted for aˑýeq̓ti. There are other variants of the compounding of simple numeral names, but this suffices to show that you have a quinary system with separate names for 5, 10, and 20.

14. malús·iyáté hat·á·má a·yéq͗ti

15.  15 by substituting látˑíw in place of ham̓ís, etc.

16. 

17. 

18. 

19. 

20. haq͗·él malús·I; masúc

Linguists providing data and dateː Dr. Bruce Nevin, Department of Linguistics, University of Pennsylvania, USA, December 24, 2009, December 19, 2013.

提供资料的语言学家: Dr. Bruce Nevin, 2009 年 12 月 24 日, 2013 年 12 月 19 日.

Other comments: Achumawi or Achomawi, Pitt River is a nearly extinct language spoken by approximately 10 elderly speakers only. Most are semi-speakers or passive speakers (Golla 2007) in 1,000 ethnic population in northeast California.

This is a salvage situation. Informants were inconsistent about numbers above 5 and uncertain about numbers above 9. This does not mean that the language lacks these numbers, it probably only means that this generation (born in the late 1800s and subjected to the educational policies then prevalent) did not hear such numbers used so as to learn and remember them. Even so, this is clearly a quinary system. A few other compound number forms were recorded by C. Hart Merriam, but I was not able to verify them; they are constructed in ways analogous to the above.

There are a few things to note in particular. Stop aspiration is contrastive only syllable-initially. The plain stops are voiceless-released syllable-finally, and voiced (to the extent that English ‘voiced’ stops are) word-initially and after short vowel. After vocalic length, plain stops are preaspirated (e.g. in a·tú·m͗i) and laryngealized stops are ‘preglottalized’, so that vowel quality is in those positions more salient than duration (short vowels being more centralized than their long counterparts).