// Workers AI · dad joke modeWhat did the Central Sierra Miwok say? Mi-wok up!

Central Sierra Miwok
Saclan
Native to	United States
Region	California
Ethnicity	Sierra Miwok
Native speakers	(12 all Miwok cited 1994)
Language family	Yok-Utian Utian Miwokan Eastern Sierra Miwok Central Sierra Miwok
Language codes
ISO 639-3	csm
Glottolog	cent2140
ELP	Sierra Miwok (shared)
Central Sierra Miwok is classified as Critically Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger.

Central Sierra Miwok is a Miwok language spoken in California, in the upper Stanislaus and Tuolumne valleys. Today it is spoken by the Chicken Ranch Rancheria of Me-Wuk Indians of California, a federally recognized tribe of Central Sierra Miwoks. As of 2012, an active revitalization program is underway in the Tuolumne Band of Me-Wuk Indians.

Phonology

With the orthography of the 1960 dictionary, the sounds of Central Sierra Miwok are,

Consonants

	Bilabial	Dental	Alveolar	Post- alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal	m		n			ŋ ⟨ŋ⟩
Plosive	p	t̪ ⟨t⟩	t ⟨ṭ⟩	tʃ ⟨č⟩		k	ʔ ⟨ʔ⟩
Fricative			s	ʃ ⟨š⟩			h
Approximant	w		l		j ⟨j⟩

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i	ɨ ⟨y⟩	u
Mid	e		o
Open		a

In later transcription, /j/ was written ⟨y⟩ and /ɨ/ ⟨ï⟩. Long vowels are written ⟨aꞏ⟩ etc.

External links

• Central Sierra Miwok wiktionary incubator test
• Central Sierra Miwok Dictionary with Texts (1960), by L. S. Freeland and Sylvia M. Broadbent
• Southern Sierra Miwok, California Language Archive
• Metathesis, Sierra Miwok
• Central Sierra Miwok basic lexicon at the Global Lexicostatistical Database
• Central Sierra Miwok at the Survey of California and Other Indian Languages
• OLAC resources in and about the Central Sierra Miwok language
• "The Tuolumne Band of Me-Wuk Indians - Language Preservation". Retrieved 2025-11-17.