Tiipai (Tipay) is a Native American language belonging to the Delta–California branch of the Yuman language family, which spans Arizona, California, and Baja California. Tiipai is spoken by a number of Kumeyaay tribes in northern Baja California and southern San Diego County, California. There were, conservatively, 200 Tiipai speakers in the early 1990s; the number of speakers has since declined steadily, numbering roughly 100 in a 2007 estimate. In the past, Tiipai and its neighbors to the north, Kumeyaay and Ipai, had been considered three dialects of a single Diegueño language—as a result, Tiipai is also known as Southern Diegueño. However, linguists now recognize that they represent at least three distinct language clusters within a speech variety continuum. Tiipai itself is not a uniform speech variety, with borders that are far from clearcut and variations across towns such as Jamul, San José, and La Huerta. Some suggest that it might be possible to recognize multiple languages within Tiipai. Published documentation of the Tiipai language includes a descriptive grammar of Jamul Tiipai, a comparative dictionary, a word list, and texts. Phonology Vowels The Jamul dialect of Tiipai contains seven vowels, four short and three long, as length is contrastive in Tiipai. The only short vowel without a corresponding long vowel is /ə/. This phoneme only appears in unstressed positions and is inserted to break up consonant clusters, though its appearance is not entirely predictable. Short vowels in the final position are often followed by aspiration, but unlike other Yuman languages, initial vowels do not have an aspirated onset. Tiipai features many alternations in vowels, with several vowels having multiple allophones. Only predictable variations are discussed below, but there are additional cases where two allophones covary, appearing in the same condition. The phoneme /i/ is usually realized as [], though it is realized as [i] between palatals and when stressed and as [] when preceded by /m/ or /xʷ/ and followed by /r/ when stressed. The long vowel // is realized as [ɪː] when stressed and preceding /w/ or adjacent to /x/. Additionally, // is realized as [ɛː] when unstressed between /x/ and /m/. The vowel /u/ is normally realized as [], though it is realized as [u] when stressed and followed by /j/ and [o] when unstressed and before /ʔ/. /uː/ is realized as [oː] when stressed and followed by /tː/, /j/, or a velar consonant. /a/ surfaces as [ɛ] when