Diegueno language
- noun
- Linguists have been working to document the Diegueno language through interviews with native speakers.
Examples
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The Diegueno language belongs to the larger Yuman language family.
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Few people today speak the Diegueno language, which is at risk of extinction.
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The Diegueno language is rich in cultural history.
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Many young people are learning the Diegueno language today.
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Few people today speak the Diegueno language, which is at risk of extinction.
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Linguists have been working to document the Diegueno language through interviews with native speakers.
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The Diegueno language belongs to the larger Yuman language family.
Synonyms
A Yuman language spoken by people in southern California and northern Baja California
Surface Forms
Morphology
Diegueno + language
This is a straightforward compositional noun phrase meaning 'the language spoken by the Diegueño (Diegueno) people', formed by an ethnonym + 'language'. If a learner knows the constituent words (the ethnonym and 'language'), the meaning is directly derivable; this naming pattern is cross-linguistically common and therefore transparent to learners.
Etymology
Diegueno language comes from the Spanish name for the area, San Diego. Spanish settlers called the local people Diegueño ('people of San Diego'), so the name came to mean the language of those people.