Penutian

Penutian is a long-debated language phylum proposed for Native languages of western North America, from California to British Columbia. The name comes from words for two, pen in the Wintuan, Maiduan and Yokuts languages and uti in Miwok and Costanoan.

In the early twentieth century Roland Dixon and Alfred Kroeber proposed the hypothesis around five California families, and Edward Sapir later expanded it to Oregon and Plateau peoples. The broader unity remains unproven and may partly reflect borrowing between neighbours, though smaller groupings such as Utian and Plateau Penutian rest on firmer evidence.

From the 1770s Spanish missions uprooted the California Penutian peoples and their languages, while Chinookan villages on the lower Columbia became fur-trade hubs where the trade language Chinook Jargon took shape.