Numu-Monachi

Numu-Monachi groups two closely related languages of the Western Numic branch of the Uto-Aztecan family: Northern Paiute, whose speakers call themselves Numu, and Mono, or Monachi. Northern Paiute bands lived across the arid Great Basin of western Nevada and adjoining regions, while Mono speakers occupied the Mono Basin, the Owens Valley and the southern Sierra Nevada.

Linguists believe Numic-speaking peoples spread outward from a homeland near the southwestern Great Basin during the centuries before European contact, replacing older languages of the basin.

Both tongues are adapted to a mobile desert way of life, with rich vocabularies for local plants, animals and water sources. Outside contacts remained sparse until British and American fur trappers such as Peter Skene Ogden and Jedediah Smith crossed their territories in the 1820s.