five local tribes. Each of the five local tribes spoke a separate subdialect. Western Excelen: upper Carmel Valley Ecgeajan: along the Big Sur coast Eastern Imunajan: along the Arroyo Seco, just south of Mission Soledad Eslenajan (or Eslen): north of Mission Soledad Aspasniajan: just south of the present day town of Greenfield The Santa Lucia Mountains formed the heart of the Esselen homeland. Each Esselen district consisted of a local tribe with their own patrilineal clans. Members of the clans were exogamous, marrying members of other clans but within the local tribe. Local Esselen tribes and their demographics are surveyed in Milliken (1990: 59). Breschini and Haversat (1994: 82-88) give the following numbers of villages and population estimates for each of the five Esselen tribes. Population estimates are calculated by multiplying the number of villages by either 30 or 40 (i.e., the presumed number of individuals per village). Phonological and lexical differences Sound correspondences between the Western and Eastern dialects: Lexical differences between the Western and Eastern dialects: Phonology has allophones of and . has an allophone of . Pronouns Subject pronouns in Western Esselen (Shaul 2019: 89): {| class="wikitable" ! !! sg !! pl |- ! 1 | ene ~ eni || leč-s; lex |- ! 2 | nemi ~ nimi || nemič; nemux |- ! 3 | lal || lač; lax |} Subject pronouns in Eastern Esselen (Shaul 2019: 89): {| class="wikitable" ! !! sg !! pl |- ! 1 | ene ~ ne || leṭ; lex |- ! 2 | name || nomeṭ; nomux |- ! 3 | huiniki || laṭ; lax |} Syntax Word order is primarily SOV (Shaul 2019). Lexicon Shaul (1995) reconstitutes Esselen vocabulary, synthesized from various historical sources, as follows. Forms from Alfred L. Kroeber are marked by (Kr). Numbers References Bibliography Golla, Victor. 2011. California Indian Languages. University of California Press. Mithun, Marianne. 1999. The Languages of Native North America. Cambridge University Press. Shaul, David L. 1995. "The Huelel (Esselen) Language." International Journal of American Linguistics 61:191-239. External links Esselen language overview at the Survey of California and Other Indian Languages Spanish-Rumsen-Esselen Glossary, 1802 Salinan-Esselen vocabulary, p. 73 Esselen at the California Language Archive OLAC resources in and about the Esselen language Esselen, The World Atlas of Language Structures Indigenous languages of California Language isolates of North America Extinct languages of North America Hokan languages Languages extinct in the 19th century 19th-century