Shoshonean

American  

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

noun

plural

Shoshoneans,

plural

Shoshonean

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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Etymology

Origin of Shoshonean

First recorded in 1890–95; Shoshone + -an

Example Sentences

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

From Time Magazine Archive

Upon the northeast the eastern limits of the pristine habitat of the Shoshonean tribes are unknown.

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 Powell, John Wesley

Now the Shoshonean languages are those best known to the author, and with some of them he has a tolerable speaking acquaintance.

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 Powell, John Wesley

However, they are of a distinctly different linguistic stock, speaking a Tewa language brought from the Rio Grande, while the Hopi speak a dialect of the Shoshonean.

From The Unwritten Literature of the Hopi by Lockett, Hattie Greene

Tribes belonging to the great Shoshonean family held almost all the eastern border of the state as well as a large part of the southern desert and coast region.

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