The
Luiseño language genetic affiliation is Uto-Aztecan
stock, Northern branch, Takic family, Cupan group.
The probable pre-holocaust geographic linguistic
boundaries were in the west from coastal Northern
San Diego County (above San Dieguito Estuary) up
to Southern Orange County (at least up to San Juan
Capistrano, including the Juaneño dialect),
eastward through Southern Orange County to Western
Riverside County in the area of Lake Elsinore in
the northeast, including most if not all of Mount
Palomar in the central eastern area, and Escondido
in the southeast. In pre-holocaust times the Luiseño
speaking communities were divided into dozens of
autonomous, semi-sedentary villages, each speaking
its own dialectal variant. Dialectal divergences
in vocabulary were greatest between north and south.
Nonetheless, Villiana Hyde, a native speaker of the
Rincón (a southern) dialect, reported that
the northernmost dialect on which we have any data,
Juaneño, was largely intelligible to her and
her family.
The
Cahuilla language also belongs in the same Cupan
group as Luiseño (above). The Probable pre-holocaust
geographic linguistic boundaries of Cahuilla were
Northeastern San Diego County, most of Riverside
County, westward at least up to the Mount Roubidoux
area. Prior to contact with Europeans, the Cahuilla
lived in autonomous semi-sedentary communities. There
exist three dialects: Mountain Cahuilla, Pass Cahuilla,
and Desert Cahuilla. Mountain and Desert Cahuilla
are mutually intelligible to roughly ninety-five
percent. Pass Cahuilla forms a very distinct unit
with many aspects of vocabulary and grammar unique
to itself. Pass Cahuilla is reportedly fifty to seventy-five
percent intelligible to speakers of Mountain or Desert
Cahuilla. No dialect of Cahuilla is mutually intelligible
to any degree beyond individual word recognition
with any dialect of Luiseño.
The
Cupeño language has the same genetic affiliation
as Luiseño and Cahuilla. In pre-holocaust
times the Cupeño occupied the valley surrounding
Warner Springs in present-day San Diego County. The
Cupeño and Mountain Cahuilla both maintain
in their oral historical accounts that the Cupeño
were originally a Mountain Cahuilla community which
broke away from the larger Mountain-Cahuilla-speaking
population, perhaps a thousand years ago. Modern
Cupeño is therefore most closely related to
the Mountain dialect of Cahuilla, with perhaps ten
percent mutual intelligibility between Mountain Cahuilla
and Cupeño. Cupeño verbal morphology
is, however, unique, probably archaic, and bears
some resemblance to Luiseño verbal structure.
Cupeño and Luiseño are not mutually
intelligible to any substantial degree.
Serrano
shares the same language family tree as the previous
languages except that it is not part of the Cupan
group. It is part of the Uto-Aztecan/Northern/Takic
family, but it belongs in the group of Gabrielino-Serrano
languages along with Tataviam and Kitanemuk. The
Serrano were originally indigenous to most of San
Bernardino County, as far as the Arizona border in
the east. Oral tradition maintains that the Serrano
also occupied parts of Los Angeles County up to the
oil producing areas of Long Beach. There is no clear
indication in the oral history as to exactly where
Serrano Territory ended in the north and south. Serrano,
although immediately recognizable as Takic, is very
divergent from any of the Cupan languages described
above. There is virtually no mutual intelligibility
between Serrano and any Cupan languages. Native speakers
of Serrano report that there was some mutual intelligibility
between Serrano and Gabrielino, the now extinct Takic
language of the Los Angeles coastal area.
