Languages

The Serrano Language is categorized as a Southern California Shoshonean language. Much of the Serrano language encodes knowledge that is endangered: Serrano place names in the ancestral landscape, names for native food and medicinal plants, artistic shapes and design forms, ancient songs and stories, kinship terms and truly esoteric advanced knowledge, such as, terms for spiritual states, hunting methodologies, and basket weaving lore. In the Serrano language, many of the words represent pIace names in the mountains. The Ianguage of the hunters was a code, describing where to hunt deer, where to watch for bears, and where to find the big horned sheep. Sacred songs reminded the hunters that when men went to find the sheep, if the natural systems were in order, the sheep would be there, and hunters would not come home empty handed.