The Kumeyaay, also known as Tipai-Ipai or by their historical Spanish name Diegueño, is a tribe of Indigenous peoples of the Americas who live at the northern border of Baja California in Mexico and the southern border of California in the United States. Their Kumeyaay language belongs to the Yuman–Cochimí language family. The Kumeyaay consist of three related groups, the Ipai, Tipai and Kamia. The San Diego River loosely divided the Ipai and the Tipai historical homelands, while the Kamia lived in the eastern desert areas. The Ipai lived to the north, from Escondido to Lake Henshaw, while the Tipai lived to the south, in lands including the Laguna Mountains, Ensenada, and Tecate. The Kamia lived to the east in an area that included Mexicali and bordered the Salton Sea. Name The Kumeyaay or Tipai-Ipai were formerly known as the Kamia or Diegueños, the former Spanish name applied to the Mission Indians living along the San Diego River. They are referred to as the Kumiai in Mexico. The term Kumeyaay translates as "Those who face the water from a cliff", with the word meyaay meaning "steep" or "cliff". Language All languages and dialects spoken by the Kumeyaay belong to the Delta–California branch of the Yuman language family, to which several other linguistically-distinct, but related, groups also belong (including the Cocopa, Quechan, Paipai, and Kiliwa). Native speakers contend that within their territory, all Kumeyaay (Ipai/Tipai) can understand and speak to each other, if even after a brief familiarization. Nomenclature and tribal distinctions are not widely agreed upon. According to Margaret Langdon, who is credited with doing much of the early work on documenting the language, the general scholarly consensus recognized three separate languages: Ipai (Iipay) (Northern Kumeyaay), Kumeyaay proper (including the Kamia/Kwaaymii), and Tipai (Southern Kumeyaay) in northern Baja California. Katherine Luomala considered that the wide range of dialect variations reflected only two distinct languages, Ipai and Tipai, a view mostly supported by other researchers. History Pre-European contact Evidence of the settlement in what is today considered Kumeyaay territory may go back 12,000 years. 7000 BCE marked the emergence of two cultural traditions: the California Coast and Valley tradition and the Desert tradition. The Kumeyaay had land along the Pacific Ocean from present Oceanside, California in the north to south of Ensenada, Mexico and extending east to the Colorado River. The Cuyamaca complex, a late Holocene complex in San Diego County