Technical Data

Language structure of mitsqanaqan̓ (Ventureño)

The mitsqanaqan̓ language has a large number of sounds like many languages in California. It’s phonology exhibits sibilant harmony and some vowel harmony. The mitsqanaqan̓ language is an agglutinating, moderately-to-highly synthetic language. Morphology favors prefixes, although verbs and nouns can take a number of suffixes. The mitsqanaqan̓ language, like all Chumashan languages, is known for its instrumental or manner prefixes. These prefixes are added to verb roots and generally convey information about how or by what means a verb is achieved: with water, with heat, quickly, intermittently, etc. For more information on the technical terms and abbreviations Click Here.

Dialects

Of the rich dialectical variants of the Ventureño Chumash language, mitsqanaqan̓ (Coast Ventureño) is the best-documented. However, there is record of the other dialects and these are noted within this dictionary. [Learn more about dialects in the About section.]

Capitalization and writing system (orthography)

For the sake of consistency and simplicity, mitsqanaqan̓ has no obligatory capitalization. That is to say, no entry in this dictionary will begin with a capitalized letter. In other publications, however, the proper names of people and place-names may be capitalized for the purposes of legibility and tracking who is doing what. Capitalization, then, may be considered a stylistic part of writing mitsqanaqan̓ (Ventureño); it is something available to the writer when it is needed. It should be noted that the glottal sound ’ can be represented by the shepherd’s crook symbol ʔ for capitalization.

The <tš> in mitsqanaqan̓ will be seen written <č> by some scholars and in the sʰamala (Inezeño Chumash) language. With few exceptions, the writing systems of other scholars of other Chumashan languages (within this dictionary) have been left as they appear in their original sources. The schwa sound is written as, <ǝ> while it will also be seen written, <ɨ>, by past scholars and the sʰamala language community.

Glottalized sonorants, which are in other works on Chumashan languages often written with an apostrophe before or after the sonorant as in <’n> or , have been standardized to have the apostrophe over the symbol itself: . Ejectives are written with a left-facing apostrophe above the ejective consonant letter: <p̓>, <t̓>, <k̓>, <q̓>, <ts̓>, <tš̓>, and <x̓>. The only exception to this is the phonetic field in dictionary entries; here, the International Phonetic Association dictates that the apostrophe is placed in the upper right-hand corner of the ejective consonant letter: [p̕, t̕, k̕, q̕, ts̕, tš̕, x̕ ].

The alphabetical order of letters in mitsqanaqan̓ is given below. The letters in parentheses are used to represent sounds that come from Spanish words or words borrowed from a neighboring California language. The sound represented by Ŋ and ŋ, written in parentheses below, is the sound represented by the -ng in English sing. The sound is not common in mitsqanaqan̓, and it seems to be found mostly in words from Uto-Aztecan languages to the south and east.

’ a (b) (d) e ə (f) (g) h i k kʰ k̓ l ł m m̓ n n̓ (ŋ) o p pʰ p̓ q qʰ q̓ (r) s sʰ š šʰ t tʰ t̓ ts tsʰ ts̓ tš tšʰ tš̓ u w x x̓ y y̓

ʔ A (B) (D) E Ə (F) (G) H I K Kʰ K̓ L Ł M M̓ N N̓ (Ŋ) O P Pʰ P̓ Q Qʰ Q̓ (R) S Sʰ Š Šʰ T Tʰ T̓ Ts Tsʰ Ts̓ Tš Tšʰ Tš̓ U W X X̓ Y Y̓

Technical Terms