Serian family

Seri

The Seri language (cmiique iitom, Ethnologue code SEI) is considered a language isolate within the Hokan stock. It is spoken in two villages (El Desemboque del Río San Ignacio and Punta Chueca) on the coast of the state of Sonora, Mexico. Tiburón Island in the Gulf of California is part of the traditional Seri homeland, and it is called Tahéjöc.

The total Seri population was less than 200 in the 1930's. Today it is at least three times larger. The Serian family has the smallest number of speakers of any family in Mexico.

The Seri people call themselves the comcáac (singular: cmiique). Until the middle of the twentieth century they were hunter-gatherers. Their livelihood today is based on commercial fishing and the sale of shell necklaces, ironwood carvings, and traditional baskets.

• Linguistic tidbits: grandparents, cactus, no, brothers and sisters, spots
• Seri auto part names and numbers
• Brief non-technical information about the language (El seri: idioma sonorense) and the culture (The Seris).
• Information that is more technical about the language: Sinopsis del idioma seri

Publications by the Summer Institute of Linguistics and its members

Linguistics

• El seri: idioma sonorense
• technical articles, including:
  -Empty consonants in root-medial position
  -Los números en seri
  -Polar questions in Seri
  -Presentación y análisis preliminar de 600 topónimos seris
  -Quantification with 'all' in Seri
  -Sinopsis del idioma seri
• dictionary (in preparation), vocabulary
• contribution to the Intercontinental Dictionary Series
• contribution to the series Archivo de Lenguas Indígenas de México, published by the Centro de Estudios Lingüísticos y Literarios, El Colegio de México
• analyzed texts
• doctoral dissertation (general description)
• master's thesis

Anthropology

• The Seris
• technical articles, including:
  -Bandas Seris
  -Seri kinship terminology, published in the SIL Electronic Working Papers
• monograph about Seri ethnobotany, published by the University of Arizona Press [out of print]

Literacy and literature

• primers
• Aclaraciones sobre la ortografía seri
• books of traditional stories and other native-authored literature, including:
  -The death of Cöimáxp
  -Five Seri stories
• New Testament
• Old Testament summary

For more information

• The Serian family is part of the Hokan stock
• Short biographies of Edward W. Moser and Roberto Herrera M.
• Population statistics by language family
• Ethnologue listing (SEI)