Quechan (Kwatsáan Iiyáa)

Quechan is a Yuman language spoken along the Colorado River and in the Sonoran Desert in southeastern California and southwestern Arizona in the USA. The majority of Yuma people live on the Fort Yuma Indian Reservation in Imperial County in California and Yuma County in Arizona. According to the 2015 census, there are 290 speakers of Quechan, which is also known as Kechan, Quecl or Yuma.

Yuman is related to Mohave and Maricopa, which are also members of the River branch of the Yuman language family.

Most Quechan speakers are over 60 years old. However, the Quechan tribe does have a language preservation program which involves teaching the language to children and adults. They are also working on a dictionary of their language.

A practical orthography for Quechan was developed in the 1990s with help from Quechan-speaking elders.

Quechan alphabet and pronunciation

Notes

[kʷ] becomes [k] and [xʷ] becomes [x] before u
r is pronounced [r] in initial position and in Spanish loanwords, and [ʐ/ɾ] elsewhere
k is pronounced [x] at the end of words, and q is pronounced [χ]
The sounds [ʧ] and [ɬ] are rare
The letter F is only used in loanwords from English
An acute accent (é) on a vowel indicates stress.
The letter A without an accent is known as the "disappearing vowel". It is pronounced [ɪ] when proceed or followed by y. When followed by by w it is pronounced [u]. When followed by ' and an accented vowel, it is pronounced like the accented vowel. When used in a prefix, a is not pronounced.

Download an alphabet chart for Quechan

Sample text in Quechan

Pa'iipáats suuváat.
Pa'iipáats nyaváyk suuváa.

Pa'iipáats 'atáyk nyaváyk viivák,
athúus
athótk
aváts 'ashéntək alyuuváapətəka.
Tsam'athúlyəm éevtək uuváat.

'Anyáayk viithíim,
amanək,
tsam'athúly nyaványa,
tsam'athúly kéek a'ét.
Anyétsəts nyuu'ítsk.

Translation

Someone was over there.
Someone was living over there.

A lot of people were living here,
but
it happened
that this (person) was the only one (who did it).
He bothered ants.

When the sun came up,
he got up,
and as for the ants' nest,
he was going to stir up the ants.
We say that.

Part of "The Man Who Bothered Ants", a traditional Quechan story.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quechan_language

Sample videos in and about Quechan

Links

Information about Quechan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quechan_language
https://www.ethnologue.com/19/language/yum/
http://www.native-languages.org/quechan.htm
https://www.quechantribe.com/departments-quechan-language-preservation.html
https://www.quechantribe.com/documents/documents/TheIntermediate-BeginnersQuechanDictionary.pdf

Yuman languages

Cocopah, Ipai, Kiliwa, Kumeyaay, Maricopa, Mojave, Paipai, Quechan, Tiipai

Languages written with the Latin alphabet

Page last modified: 02.03.22

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