Shoshonean

American  

[shoh-shoh-nee-uhn, shoh-shuh-nee-uhn] / ʃoʊˈʃoʊ ni ən, ˌʃoʊ ʃəˈni ən /

noun

• Shoshoneans,
  plural
• Shoshonean
  plural

1. (in some, especially earlier, classifications) a grouping of four branches of the Uto-Aztecan language family including Numic, Hopi, and several languages of southern California.

2. a member of a group speaking a Shoshonean language.

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adjective

1. of or relating to the Shoshonean-speaking peoples or their languages.

Shoshonean British  

/ ʃəʊˈʃəʊnɪən, ˌʃəʊʃəˈniːən /

noun

1. a subfamily of North American Indian languages belonging to the Uto-Aztecan family, spoken mainly in the southwestern US

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• Shoshonean
  plural
• Shoshoneans
  plural

Etymology

Origin of Shoshonean

First recorded in 1890–95; Shoshone + -an

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

Shoshonean

First came Wallace J. "Chief" Newman, a full-blooded Shoshonean Indian who coached 155-lb.

From Time Magazine Archive

They are of the Aztecan branch of the Shoshonean family and probably the lineal descendents of the cliff dwellers.

From Arizona Sketches by J. A. (Joseph Amasa) Munk

In the southwest Shoshonean tribes had pushed across California, occupying a wide band of country to the Pacific.

From Indian Linguistic Families Of America, North Of Mexico Seventh Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1885-1886, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1891, pages 1-142 by John Wesley Powell

They belong to the great Shoshonean family, and are a short, stocky, gentle people, given to agriculture, sheep raising, basketry and pottery, and a little weaving and silver work.

From The Grand Canyon of Arizona; how to see it by George Wharton James

The religion of the Shoshonean Paiute or Chemehuevi in the desert adjoining the Mohave has been largely colored by the influence of the latter.

From The Religion of the Indians of California by A. L. Kroeber