Annual Language Trip to the Folsom City Zoo Sanctuary

Table of Contents

Language at the Zoo

Searchable table

Language + notes

About the event

About the languages

Nisenáan (Nisenan)

Míw’a (Northern Sierra Miwok)

Please contact us at language@ssband.org to check on the availability of materials from this year's zoo trip or to ask us any questions.

Searchable table

The Folsom City Zoo Sanctuary is home to a wide range of native and non-native animals and plants. You can search the table below and listen to the Nisenan and Northern Sierra Miwok names for many of them. You can also download a copy of our zoo language map.

Heads-up! You can use the copy button ( ) to copy the name to your clipboard and you can click on the English name to find more information.

Language + notes

This section contains audio recordings of the Nisenan and Northern Sierra Miwok language that you’ll find on our SSBMI Language signage at the Folsom City Zoo Sanctuary, as well as informational notes. You can also download a copy of our zoo language map.

The Folsom Zoo hosts two colonies of honeybees, but did you know that honeybees are an introduced species? At the Folsom Zoo Language Trip, we shared signage highlighting two families of native bees (bumblebees and yellowjackets) and their Nisenan and Northern Sierra Miwok names.

What do you call a Honeybee? All the honeybees you see around you are European honeybees (A. mellifera), and they are an introduced species.

When a new species is introduced to an area, speakers have many options for naming it. Sometimes speakers come up with a new name for that species, or they may adapt a word from another language, like Spanish or English.

William Joseph (a.k.a. Bill Joe), a Nisenan man from Amador County, adopted the first of these strategies and called honeybees woolém eepén. This name literally means "European yellowjacket", reflecting his knowledge of the origin of this species.

Northern Sierra Miwok speakers adopted the second of these strategies by adapting the English word "honey" and calling honeybees háne.

There are butterflies at the zoo and bug boxes for other bugs to nest in. Here are the Nisenan and Northern Sierra Miwok words for "butterfly":

As you tour the zoo, you may see two kinds of squirrels in some of the enclosures. Here are their Nisenan and Northern Sierra Miwok names:

You may have noticed a metal statue honoring California condors when you were visiting the Folsom Zoo. While Folsom is no longer home to any condors, these massive birds once soared throughout California. Here are their Nisenan and Northern Sierra Miwok names:

The Folsom Zoo is home to many kinds of plants. Here are Nisenan and Miwok names for a few of the native plants that you may see at the zoo:

What do you call "mint", "monkeyflower", or "yarrow" in Miwok? We draw most of our language from historical documentation, and sometimes there are gaps where our records do not contain certain names. We have not found names for these plants in Northern Sierra Miwok yet.

You may have seen a replica bedrock mortar at the zoo. Bedrock mortars are used to grind acorn and other foods, and they are an important part of traditional lifeways in Central California. The grinding holes grow deeper through use over many, many generations; the depth of these holes reflects the presence of Native Peoples in California since time immemorial. Please respect bedrock mortars by leaving them alone.

About the event

The Annual Language Trip to the Folsom City Zoo Sanctuary has been hosted by the SSBMI Language Department for SSBMI Tribal Members and SSBMI TANF families since 2023. Each year we gather at the zoo to enjoy the animals and plants who live there while learning the Nisenan and Northern Sierra Miwok languages through Language Department signage, activities, and learning resources, like booklets and flashcards. You can learn more about the animal flashcards we have shared, listen to audio recordings, and download printable versions here.

Additionally, the SSBMI Environmental Department and SSBMI Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) Department host games and activities for attendees and the SSBMI Exhibits & Collections Center (ECC) provides drinks for attendees to enjoy while touring the zoo. Our partners at the Folsom City Zoo Sanctuary also engage with attendees, answer questions, and facilitate visits with the zoo’s ambassador animals. We are grateful to our partners for helping make this a great community event every year! Wenném! (Thank you!)

We held our 4th annual language trip to the Folsom Zoo on May 15, 2026. Thank you to everyone who participated! The Language Department gave out a new set of animal flashcards and an enamel pin featuring weekwék (peregrine falcon).

Peregrine Falcon (2026)

Nisenan

Weekwék

Miwok

Wékwekɨ

---

Bobcat (2025)

Nisenan

Tolomá

Miwok

Tóllomma

---

Black Bear (2024)

Nisenan

Emúl

Miwok

Úyyemɨ

All pin artwork created by Skye Anderson (SSBMI Language Department); © Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians.

Please contact us at language@ssband.org to check on the availability of these resources.

About the languages

Nisenáan (Nisenan)

Folsom is part of the Tribe's ancestral Nisenan homelands in the Sacramento Valley. The Nisenan language has been spoken in Folsom since time immemorial, and we are proud to be able to share the Tribe's heritage languages here at the Folsom Zoo.

Jane Winn Lewis, a Nisenan woman from the Folsom area, called this place Poló Oo, which means "Buckeye Rock" in Nisenan. Today, you can see this name on the Polo ’Oo Boat Launch at Black Miners Bar in the Folsom Lake State Recreation Area.

The SSBMI Community has ancestral ties to the Valley and Southern Hill dialects of the Nisenan language through the Tribe's Matriarchs, Pamela Cleanso Adams and Annie Hill Murray Paris. Pamela spoke the Valley dialect and she, her brother Tom Cleanso, and her daughter Lillie Williams are responsible for passing on most of the knowledge we have of Valley Nisenan today. We have less direct information about Annie’s language; based on where she was from and documented language from her relations and associates, she likely spoke Southern Hill Nisenan.

The Nisenan language that we share on our language learning materials is from speakers of the Valley dialect like SSBMI Matriarch Pamela Cleanso Adams and her brother Tom Cleanso, as well as speakers of the Southern Hill dialect including William Joseph (a.k.a. Bill Joe), Ida Hill Starkey, Charlie Hunchup, and Amanda Winn. We also adapted names for "donkey", "goat", and "mint" from the Central Hill dialect as spoken by Lizzie Enos because we have not found names from the Tribe's heritage dialects.

Valley Nisenan and Southern Hill Nisenan are very similar to one another in their words and grammar, and they are more similar to one another than either one is to the other dialects of the Nisenan language (i.e. Central Hill Nisenan and Northern Hill Nisenan). You can learn more about the Nisenan language, the Tribe's language background, and where these dialects are spoken by checking out our "Language FAQ" pamphlet.

Míw’a (Northern Sierra Miwok)

There are several distinct and mutually unintelligible Miwok languages spoken in California. Northern Sierra Miwok is the northernmost of the three Miwok languages that are spoken in the Sierra Nevada foothills. It is spoken from the Middle Fork of the Cosumnes River southward to the area between the Calaveras River and Angels Camp. It is distinct from Plains Miwok, which is spoken in the valley south of Sacramento.

The Northern Sierra Miwok language we share comes from many speakers like Eph Cummings and others who worked with C. Hart Merriam in the early 1900s, and Queenie Miller, Elena McCauley, & Nicolas Villa Sr., who worked with linguist Catherine Callaghan on the Northern Sierra Miwok dictionary (1987). The word for fox which we share here is specific to the northern dialects of Northern Sierra Miwok spoken by Queenie Miller and others. Otherwise, to the best of our knowledge speakers of all dialects of Northern Sierra Miwok share these words and phrases.

You can learn more about the Tribe's language background and where Northern Sierra Miwok is spoken from our "Language FAQ" pamphlet.

About the website: This website is maintained by SSBMI Language Department staff in order to share Nisenan and Northern Sierra Miwok language learning resources with Tribal Members and other learners. Our team consists of: Jonathan Geary, Skye Anderson, & Richenda Ervin. Unless otherwise specified, the Nisenan and Miwok audio recordings that you will find on this website are of Jonathan, Skye, and Richenda.

We are all learners of the Nisenan and Northern Sierra Miwok languages, and we hope that you will join us in learning Nisenan and Miwok too!

If you have questions or want to know more about either language, you can reach out to us at Language@ssband.org.

Webpage last updated: 2026-06-09