SSBMI Language Department

Big Time 2024

The SSBMI Language Department and Traditional Ecological Knowledge Department created a Big Time-themed Nisenan language poster, which we shared at the Tribe's Lumáy (Big Time) celebration on August 24-25, 2024. Here, you can learn how to say these phrases.

The Tribe has ancestral ties to the Nisenan language through the Tribe's Matriarchs, Pamela Cleanso Adams and Annie Hill Murray Paris. Pamela, Annie, and many of their close relations spoke Nisenan and shared their language with researchers in the early 1900s. The knowledge they shared provides us with a pathway to reconnect with the Nisenan language today. The Tribe also has significant connections to ancestral Nisenan villages like Pusúune and Yáales, where the Nisenan language has been spoken since time immemorial.

We created and shared this Nisenan language poster to honor and reconnect with this part of the Tribe's heritage. Nisenáanweypé!

Here are the Nisenan words for "Small Time" (Huslá) and "Big Time" (Lumáy). You may recognize these words from other Small Time and Big Time materials this year, such as the 2024 Big Time flyer which says Lumaydí Ɨdawwá! (Come to Big Time!):

Here are a few Nisenan phrases that you can use to talk about things that you may do at Huslá and Lumáy, such as dancing, singing, and eating:

Finally, here is a Nisenan phrase that we shared to express some of the purpose behind Huslá and Lumáy activities:

About the language

The Nisenan language that we share comes from speakers of the Valley dialect of Nisenan like SSBMI Matriarch Pamela Cleanso Adams and her brother Tom Cleanso as well as speakers of the Southern Hill dialect like William Joseph, Ida Hill Starkey, and Charlie Hunchup.

Valley Nisenan and Southern Hill Nisenan are very similar to one another in terms of their words and grammar. To the best of our knowledge, all of the words and phrases that we share here are shared by the speakers of both of these dialects.

Did you notice that many of the phrases on this poster end in -pe? This is a grammatical suffix that you add to the ends of verbs in Nisenan to mean "Let's _____!", like in Hoyyapé! (Let's begin!) from the verb hoyya- (to begin) and in Payelpé! (Let's eat!) from the verb payel- (to eat).

Crucially, the suffix -pe here means that you are talking to two or more people and not just one person. If you want to direct these phrases to one person, i.e. "Let's the two of us _____!", you use the suffix -pɨ instead. For example, you could say Payelpɨ́! (Let's the two of us eat!).

For more help reading these phrases, please consult our Guide to the SSBMI Nisenan Alphabet, which you can download and print at home.

About the poster

This poster was designed by Language Department staff and features the Tribe's Big Time 2024 logo drawn by Victorio L. Shaw (@vlshaw_art).

If you would like a copy of the Big Time language poster, please visit us in the Tribal Admin building or contact us at language@ssband.org.

Webpage last updated: 2024-08-23