Turning Phrases: Exploring Expressive Potential in Morpheme Combinations of Nuwä Abigip

FAIN: FN-285729-22

Laura Grant
Kawaiisu Language and Cultural Center (Tehachapi, CA 93561)

Research and writing leading to a book that documents Nuwä Abigip, a Southern Numic language of the Northern branch of the Uto-Aztecan family.

The nuwüm, (also known as Kawaiisu), are one group of Indigenous peoples living in their traditional territories in Kern County, California. Their language, nuwä abigip, (Kawaiisu, ISO 639-3) is a Southern Numic language of the Northern branch of the Uto-Aztecan family. Lucille Girado-Hicks (b. 1945) is the only remaining first-language speaker. In close collaboration with Lucille, the researcher will document constructions of multiple bound morphemes present in earlier recordings of sustained natural language use among three first-language speakers, Lucille, her brother and sister. In this opportunity to explore nuwä abigip’s inventive inflectional forms, we seek to discover what we can learn about its morphology that will expand models of the expressive capacity of this Numic language, and related Numic languages, and also provide supports for language revitalization through the use of these models. Results will be archived at SCOIL at the University of California, Berkeley.