SSBMI Environmental Department 2025 Calendar
The SSBMI Environmental Department created a 2025 calendar for Tribal Members celebrating some of the water bodies that are important to Shingle Springs Rancheria families. They collaborated with the SSBMI Language Department to share Nisenan words & phrases in the calendar, including names for seasons, days of the week, and some village sites, rivers, and Tribal celebrations as well as words/phrases of the month.
Here, you can listen to the Nisenan language in your 2025 Momím Wadaahám calendar and learn more about the language.
English
Water is Life
Nisenan
Momím Wadaahám
Season names
English
Spring
Nisenan
Yoomén
Summer
Okomén
Fall
Topmén
Winter
Tamás
Days of the week
English
Sunday
Nisenan
Tuminkú
Monday
Wítteepay
Tuesday
Péenpay
Wednesday
Sapwíypay
Thursday
C’ɨ́ɨypay
Friday
Máawɨkpay
Saturday
Saawalú
Esak’ábe mi? (Do you know?) The practice of dividing the week into 7 days (and of dividing the year into 52 weeks) is a recent innovation, which is reflected in how Nisenan speakers name the days of the week. The words Saawalú (Saturday) and Tuminkú (Sunday) were borrowed from the Spanish words Sábado (Saturday) and Domingo (Sunday), respectively, with speakers adapting them to sound like Nisenan words.
Speakers of many Native California languages borrowed words for Saturday and Sunday from Spanish. For example, the Northern Sierra Miwok words are Sáawalu and Tumíŋku, respectively; they sound so similar to the Nisenan ones because they were borrowed from the same sources.
On the other hand, the Nisenan names for the days Monday through Friday are derived by combining the numbers 1-5 with a word-ending -pay:
wíttee 'one (1)' | + -pay | --> Wítteepay 'Monday' |
peen 'two (2)' | + -pay | --> Péenpay 'Tuesday' |
sapwíy 'three (3)' | + -pay | --> Sapwíypay 'Wednesday' |
c’ɨɨy 'four (4)' | + -pay | --> C’ɨ́ɨypay 'Thursday' |
máawɨk 'five (5)' | + -pay | --> Máawɨkpay 'Friday' |
Using number words like this is another common strategy that speakers of Native California languages have used to name the days of the week.
Village sites
English
Kadema
Nisenan
K’ademmá
Pushune
Pusúune
Verona Marina
Wóllok
Rivers
English
American River
(literal: East Water)
Nisenan
Nótowmom
Sacramento River
(literal: West Water)
Táamom
What do you call a river? English speakers today can find a river's official English name on maps and signs. Traditionally, Nisenan people named rivers descriptively from their own perspectives. The names that we share here come from Tom Cleanso, who lived at Pusúune at the confluence of the Sacramento and American Rivers, and they describe these rivers from his point of view: Táamom ("West Water"; Sacramento River) and Nótowmom ("East Water"; American River). Other speakers, who live in other places, have other names that describe the rivers differently.
Tribal celebrations
English
Small Time
Nisenan
Huslá
Big Time
Lumáy
Esak’ábe mi? (Do you know?) Historically, Nisenan speakers used Lumáy to name all inter-community ceremonies and celebrations, all of which were called "Big Time" in English, and Huslá to name all ceremonies and celebrations held within one community or one family, all of which were called "Small Time" in English. Communities could hold multiple of these events in a year.
Today, we use the same names Huslá and Lumáy to name the Tribe's annual Small Time and Big Time celebrations, respectively.