Klamath / Modoc Linguistics Page

This page is under construction; last changes 8/27/1997.
Suggestions welcome; contact Scott DeLancey at delancey@darkwing.uoregon.edu

Other linguists who currently work on Klamath include:

to the Penutian Page
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Contents of this page

The Klamath-Modoc Language

Klamath and Modoc are the English names of two closely related dialects: Klamath (/?ewksiknii/ "people of the Lake") spoken around Klamath and Agency Lakes in south-central Oregon, and Modoc (/moowat'aakknii/ 'people from the south') directly to the south around Tule Lake and south to the lava beds in California. (The word "Klamath", of uncertain origin, does not come from the Klamath-Modoc language). Both dialects are nearly extinct, though the Tribes are currently engaged in various language preservation and restoration projects.

The language belongs to the Plateau branch of the Penutian family. The other branches of Plateau Penutian are Sahaptian (Nez Perce and several Sahaptin dialects), Molala, and perhaps Cayuse. It is possible that the Maiduan languages of east-central California have a special relationship to Plateau within Penutian.

Klamath is relatively well-documented, with an extensive dictionary, grammar, and collection of texts by A. S. Gatschet prepared in the 1870's (pub. 1890), and an excellent dictionary, grammar, and texts by M.A.R. Barker, based on work done in the mid-1950's (pub. 1963-4), as well as an important unpublished collection of mythological and other texts by Theodore Stern (1950-54). All three collections contain extensive mythological material, as well as historical texts dealing both with intertribal and Klamath-White interactions, ethnographic texts describing cultural practices, rituals, food preparation, etc., and autobiograhical reminiscences. Gatschet's and Stern's collections also include songs, invocations, and children's games.

There is a short ethnographic description of the Klamath on the Web at the "Centre for Social Anthropology and Computing at the University of Kent at Canterbury.

Bibliographic resources

Klamath-Modoc linguistic bibliography
A list of (mostly) published material on the Klamath language, folklore and mythology. If you know of work not listed here, please send me citations.
Penutian bibliography
A pretty complete (as of 1994) bibliography of work on Penutian languages and comparative Penutian, prepared by Victor Golla for the Comparative Penutian Workshop.
Modoc bibliography
a bibliography on the Modoc (and Klamath) prepared by the California Indian Library Collections

Papers on Klamath-Modoc available at this site
DeLancey, Scott. 1987. Morphological parallels between Klamath and Wintu.
J. Redden, ed., Proc. of the 1987 Hokan-Penutian Conference, pp. 50-60. Carbondale, IL: Dept. of Linguistics, Southern Illinois University.
DeLancey, Scott. 1988. Klamath stem structure in genetic and areal perspective.
S. DeLancey, ed., Papers from the 1988 Hokan-Penutian Workshop, pp. 31-9.
DeLancey, Scott. 1990. Diachronic Notes on the Klamath Verb Suffixes
presented at the 1989 Hokan-Penutian Workshop. published in S. DeLancey, ed., Papers from the 1989 Hokan-Penutian Workshop, pp. 18-27.
DeLancey, Scott. 1996. Argument structure of Klamath bipartite stems
Presented at the 1996 SSILA meeting in San Diego.
DeLancey, Scott. 1996. Penutian in the bipartite stem belt: Disentangling areal and genetic correspondences.
Proceedings of the Twenty-Second Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society: Special Session on Historical Topics in Native American Languages.

Klamath-Penutian comparative data

Useful materials for Klamath linguistic research

Table of contents to Gatschet's Grammar of the Klamath Language.
Gatschet's grammar has no table of contents, making it difficult to use as a reference. Here's a list of his chapter and section headings.
Scott DeLancey, delancey@darkwing.uoregon.edu