The Wiyot people live along the coast of central Humboldt county in the state of California. The language currently has no native speakers left, the last one passing away in the early 1960’s. There is a language revitalisation program currently underway. If successful, the Wiyot language will be heard once again in its native territory.

The writing system now being used by the revitalisation project is a practical orthography based on the linguist, Karl Teeter’s analysis. Several differences from Teeter’s are: writing the /h/ as either ‹h› (before a vowel) or ‹ʼ› (elsewhere), no stress/tone marks are present in the practical orthography.

Note: There are several Roman Orthography conventions on this site that may require further explanation. On the charts below, there is lots of phonetic terminology that may not be familiar to everyone.  

The United States Census does not mention any Wiyot speakers.

• I have also seen the lateral fricative /ł/ written with its ipa equivalent, ɬ.

Last Update: August 18, 2010