Language
Nomenclature and tribal distinctions are not widely agreed upon. The general scholarly consensus recognizes three separate languages: Ipai, Kumeyaay proper (including the Kamia), and Tipai in northern Baja California (e.g., Langdon 1990). However, this notion is not supported by speakers of the language (actual Kumeyaay people) who contend that within their territory, all Kumeyaay (Ipai/Tipai) can understand and speak to each other, at least after a brief acclimatization period. All three languages belong to the Delta–California branch of the Yuman family, to which several other linguistically distinct but related groups also belong, including the Cocopa, Quechan, Paipai, and Kiliwa.
The meaning of the term Kumeyaay is unknown, but Ipai or Tipai both mean "people." Some Kumeyaay in the southern areas also refer to themselves as MuttTipi, which means "people of the earth."
Read more about this topic: Kumeyaay People
Famous quotes containing the word language:
“I invented the colors of the vowels!—A black, E white, I red, O blue, U green—I made rules for the form and movement of each consonant, and, and with instinctive rhythms, I flattered myself that I had created a poetic language accessible, some day, to all the senses.”
—Arthur Rimbaud (1854–1891)
“Play for young children is not recreation activity,... It is not leisure-time activity nor escape activity.... Play is thinking time for young children. It is language time. Problem-solving time. It is memory time, planning time, investigating time. It is organization-of-ideas time, when the young child uses his mind and body and his social skills and all his powers in response to the stimuli he has met.”
—James L. Hymes, Jr. (20th century)
“Like the train’s beat
Swift language flutters the lips
Of the Polish airgirl in the corner seat.”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)