The Lake Miwok language is an extinct language of Northern California, traditionally spoken in an area adjacent to the Clear Lake. It is one of the languages of the Clear Lake Linguistic Area, along with Patwin, East and Southeastern Pomo, and Wappo.

Phonology

Vowels

Consonants

The consonant inventory of Lake Miwok differs substantially from the inventories found in the other Miwok languages. Where the other languages only have one series of plosives, Lake Miwok has four: plain, aspirated, ejective and voiced. Lake Miwok has also added the affricates č, c, čʼ, cʼ, ƛʼ and the liquids r and ł. These sounds appear to have been borrowed through loanwords from other, unrelated languages in the Clear Lake area, after which they spread to some native Lake Miwok words.

Grammar

The word order of Lake Miwok is relatively free, but SOV (subject–object–verb) is the most common order.

Verb morphology

Pronominal clitics

In her Lake Miwok grammar, Callaghan reports that one speaker distinguishes between 1st person dual inclusive ʔoc and exclusive ʔic. Another speaker also remembers that this distinction used to be made by older speakers.

Noun morphology

Case inflection

Nouns can be inflected for ten different cases: kukú -n ʔin tíkki -t mékuh flea -subjective 2SG forehead -allative sit "A flea is sitting on your forehead." ʔóle -n ṣúluk coyote -possessive skin "coyote skin" táj -Ø ṣáapa man -possessive hair "the man's hair" káac -u -n ʔúṭe? fish -objective -2SG see "Did you see the fish?" kawáj -Ø ka ʔúṭe horse -objective 1SG see "I saw the horse" káac -uc jolúm -mi fish -objective eat -imperative "Eat the fish"

Possessive clitics

Lake Miwok uses pronominal clitics to indicate the possessor of a noun. Except for the 3d person singular, they have the same shape as the nominative pronominal clitics, but show no allomorphy. The reflexive hana forms have the same referent as the subject of the same clause, whereas the non-reflexive forms have a different referent, e.g.: