Shoshoni, also written as Shoshoni-Gosiute and Shoshone (; Shoshoni: soni' ta̲i̲kwappe, newe ta̲i̲kwappe or neme ta̲i̲kwappeh), is a Numic language of the Uto-Aztecan family, spoken in the Western United States by the Shoshone people. Shoshoni is primarily spoken in the Great Basin, in areas of Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, and Idaho.
The consonant inventory of Shoshoni is rather small, but a much wider range of surface forms of these phonemes appear in the spoken language. The language has six vowels, distinguished by length. Shoshoni is a strongly suffixing language, and it inflects for nominal number and case and for verbal aspect and tense using suffixes. Word order is relatively free but shows a preference toward SOV order.
The endonyms newe ta̲i̲kwappe and Sosoni' ta̲i̲kwappe mean "the people's language" and "the Shoshoni language," respectively. Shoshoni is classified as threatened, although attempts at revitalization are underway.
Classification and dialects
Shoshoni is the northernmost member of the large Uto-Aztecan language family, which includes nearly sixty living languages, spoken in the Western United States down through Mexico and into El Salvador. Shoshoni belongs to the Numic subbranch of Uto-Aztecan. The word Numic comes from the cognate word in all Numic languages for "person". For example, in Shoshoni the word is neme or, depending on the dialect, newe , in Timbisha it is nümü , and in Southern Paiute, nuwuvi .
Shoshoni's closest relatives are the Central Numic languages Timbisha and Comanche. Timbisha, or Panamint, is spoken in southeastern California by members of the Timbisha Shoshone Tribe, but it is considered a distinct language from Shoshoni. The Comanche split from the Shoshone around 1700, and consonant changes over the past few centuries have limited mutual intelligibility of Comanche and Shoshoni.
Principal dialects of Shoshoni are Western Shoshoni in Nevada, Gosiute in western Utah, Northern Shoshoni in southern Idaho and northern Utah, and Eastern Shoshoni in Wyoming. The main differences between these dialects are phonological.
Status
The number of people who speak Shoshoni has been steadily dwindling since the late 20th century. In the early 21st century, fluent speakers number only several hundred to a few thousand people, while an additional population of about 1,000 know the language to some degree but are not fluent. The Duck Valley and Gosiute communities have established programs to teach the language to their children. Ethnologue lists Shoshoni as "threatened" as it notes that many of the speakers are 50 and older. UNESCO has classified the Shoshoni language as "severely endangered" in Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming. The language is still being taught to children in a small number of isolated locations. The tribes have a strong interest in language revitalization, but efforts to preserve the language are scattered, with little coordination. However, literacy in Shoshoni is increasing. Shoshoni dictionaries have been published and portions of the Bible were translated in 1986.
As of 2012, Idaho State University offers elementary, intermediate, and conversational Shoshoni language classes, in a 20-year project to preserve the language. Open-source Shosoni audio is available online to complement classroom instruction, as part of the university's long-standing Shoshoni Language Project.
The Shoshone-Bannock Tribe teaches Shoshoni to its children and adults as part of its Language and Culture Preservation Program. On the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming, elders have been active in digital language archiving. Shoshoni is taught using Dr. Steven Greymorning's Accelerated Second Language Acquisition techniques.
A summer program known as the Shoshone/Goshute Youth Language Apprenticeship Program (SYLAP), held at the University of Utah's Center for American Indian Languages since 2009, has been featured on NPR's Weekend Edition. Shoshoni youth serve as interns, assisting with digitization of Shoshoni language recordings and documentation from the Wick R. Miller collection, in order to make the materials available for tribal members. The program released the first Shoshone language video game in August 2013.
In July 2012, Blackfoot High School in Southeastern Idaho announced it would offer Shoshoni language classes. The Chief Tahgee Elementary Academy, a Shoshone-Bannock charter school teaching English and Shoshoni, opened at Fort Hall in 2013.