integral to the style and structure of the text and are a necessary part of it ... . There are also many references to things and people that may seem vague. The level of presumed knowledge in a Yahi story is much higher than in English narration, because these people lived in a small, face-to-face society, and stories were told over and over. A native audience would be familiar with the characters and plot, and therefore much of the emphasis is on detail and technique rather than plot." Phonology Consonants Vowels Yana has five vowels, /i, ɛ, a, ɔ, u/; Sapir's (1910) comparanda with vowels of English, French and German clearly indicate that the mid vowels are lower mid. Each vowel occurs with phonemic vowel length. Bibliography Campbell, Lyle. (1997). American Indian languages: The historical linguistics of Native America. New York: Oxford University Press. . Goddard, Ives (Ed.). (1996). Languages. Handbook of North American Indians (W. C. Sturtevant, General Ed.) (Vol. 17). Washington, D. C.: Smithsonian Institution. . Mithun, Marianne. (1999). The languages of Native North America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (hbk); . Sapir, Edward. (1922). The Fundamental Elements of Northern Yana. University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology 13. 215-234. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press. Sapir, Edward. 1910. Yana Texts. University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology, vol. 1, no. 9. Berkeley: University Press. (Online version at the Internet Archive). Sturtevant, William C. (Ed.). (1978–present). Handbook of North American Indians (Vol. 1–20). Washington, D. C.: Smithsonian Institution. (Vols. 1–3, 16, 18–20 not yet published). References External links Yana language overview at the Survey of California and Other Indian Languages Yana basic lexicon at the Global Lexicostatistical Database Yana Indigenous languages of California Language isolates of North America Extinct languages of North America Hokan languages Languages extinct in the 1910s 1916 disestablishments in California Subject–verb–object languages Polysynthetic languages