The Tongva language is a Uto-Aztecan language formerly spoken by the Tongva, a Native American people who live in and around Los Angeles, California. It has not been a language of everyday conversation since the 1940s. The Gabrieleño people now speak English but a few are attempting to revive their language by using it in everyday conversation and ceremonial contexts. Presently, Gabrieleño is also being used in language revitalization classes and in some public discussion regarding religious and environmental issues. Tongva is closely related to Serrano. The last fluent native speakers of Tongva lived in the early 20th century. The language is primarily documented in the unpublished field notes of John Peabody Harrington made during that time. The "J.P. Harrington Project", developed by the Smithsonian through UC Davis, approximately 6,000 pages of his notes on the Tongva language, were coded for documentation by a Tongva member, who took 3 years to accomplish the task. Claims of native speakers of Tongva who have died as late as in the 1970s have not been verified as having been fluent speakers. Evidence of the language also survives in modern toponymy of Southern California, including Pacoima, Tujunga, Topanga, Azusa, Cahuenga in Cahuenga Pass and Cucamonga in Rancho Cucamonga. Additionally, the minor planet50000 Quaoar was named after the Tongva creator god.
Language revitalization
As of 2012, members of the contemporary Tongva tribal council are attempting to revive the language, by making use of written vocabularies, by comparison to better attested members of the Takic group to which Tongva belonged, and by offering classes. The Gabrieliño-Tongva Language Committee has created Tongva grammar lessons and songs, and a Tongva Facebook page "introduces an audio of a new word, phrase or song daily."
Phonology
Consonants
The following is a list of the consonants and vowels of the Tongva language as used by the Tongva Language Committee, based on linguist Pamela Munro's interpretation of the fieldnotes of J. P. Harrington. In parentheses is the spelling of the specific sound. Note that there are multiple orthographies for the Tongva language. Consonants /b d f ɡ/ are used in loanwords.
Vowels
Morphology
Tongva is an agglutinative language, where words use suffixes and multiple morphemes for a variety of purposes.
