Kiliwa language

Kiliwa (also Kiliwi, Ko’lew or Quiligua) (in Kiliwa: Koleeu ñaja) is a Yuman language spoken in Baja California, in the far northwest of Mexico, by the Kiliwa people.

Seventy-six people reported their language as Kiliwa in a 2020 census. However, a count in 2018 found only four speakers remaining.

The Kiliwa language was extensively studied by Mauricio J. Mixco, who published Kiliwa texts as well as a dictionary and studies of syntax.

As recently as the mid-1900s, Mixco reported that members of the native community universally spoke Kiliwa as their first language, with many Kiliwas also bilingual in Paipai. At the start of the twenty-first century, Kiliwa is still spoken; a 2000 census reported 52 speakers. However, the language is considered to be in danger of extinction.

Kiliwa is a language of the Yuman Family Language Summit, held annually since 2001.

Kiliwa is the southernmost representative of the Yuman family, and the one that is most distinct from the remaining languages, which constitute Core Yuman. The Kiliwa's neighbors to the south, the Cochimí, spoke a language or a family of languages that was probably closely related to but not within the Yuman family. Consequently, the Kiliwa lie at the historic "center of gravity" for the differentiation of Yuman from Cochimí and of the Yuman branches from each other.

Linguistic prehistorians are not in agreement as to whether the Kiliwa's linguistic ancestors are most likely to have migrated into the Baja California peninsula from the north separately from the ancestors of the Cochimí and the Core Yumans, or whether they became differentiated from those groups in place. The controversial technique of glottochronology suggests that the separation of Kiliwa from Core Yuman may have occurred about 2,000–3,000 years ago.

Intervocalic allophones of /p, t, k, kʷ/ can occur as [β, ð, ɣ, ɣʷ]. An approximant sound such as /j/ after a glottal /h/ can become devoiced as [j̊], as with a devoiced [ʍ] sound being an allophone of /hʷ/.