A Database of Mutsun, an Extinct California American Indian Language

FAIN: PA-51356-05

Arizona Board of Regents (Tucson, AZ 85721-0073)
Natasha Lynn Warner (Project Director: July 2004 to October 2017)

The transcription and encoding of field notes on the extinct language of the Mutsun, a California Indian tribe, resulting in a text database and a lexical/dictionary database, to be available also in print.

This project will encode all archival information about the extinct Mutsun language into two databases. Mutsun is a Costanoan Native American language, spoken in the San Francisco area until 1930. Several early linguists recorded vast quantities of information about Mutsun, but this information, although on microfilm, is inaccessible because it is in the form of unanalyzed fieldnotes, primarily handwritten. The project will enter all of the archival information into an annotated text database and a dictionary database, producing a hard copy dictionary and hard copy annotated text publication as well as searchable databases. These products will be of great benefit to the Mutsun people, to other Native American groups, and to linguists.

Media Coverage

Mutsun descendants learn their ancestral tongue in San Juan (Media Coverage)
Author(s): Frank Perez
Publication: Benito Link
Date: 7/7/2017
Abstract: Local newspaper coverage of dictionary tutorial workshop
URL: https://benitolink.com/news/mutsun-descendants-learn-their-ancestral-tongue-san-juan

Nearly 20 years in the making, dictionary awakens Mutsun language (Media Coverage)
Author(s): Frank Perez
Publication: Benito Link
Date: 7/17/2016
Abstract: Article describing the dictionary project
URL: https://benitolink.com/nearly-20-years-making-dictionary-awakens-mutsun-language

Associated Products

Mutsun-English English-Mutsun Dictionary; mutsun-inkiS inkiS-mutsun riica pappel (Book)
Title: Mutsun-English English-Mutsun Dictionary; mutsun-inkiS inkiS-mutsun riica pappel
Author: Natasha Warner
Author: Quirina Geary
Author: Lynnika Butler
Abstract: Mutsun is a Costanoan language (part of the Utian language family) from California in the area around the modern towns of San Juan Bautista, Hollister, and Gilroy. The last fluent speaker of Mutsun, Mrs. Ascension Solarsano, died in 1930. Because of her work and the work of earlier native Mutsun speakers with early linguists, there is a large written corpus of Mutsun we can learn from. This book provides a dictionary in which you can look up the Mutsun words for English words, or vice versa.
Year: 2016
Primary URL: http://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/handle/10125/24679
Access Model: open access
Publisher: University of Hawai'i Press
Type: Multi-author monograph
ISBN: ISBN-10: 0-985
Copy sent to NEH?: Yes

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