Throughout August, we have travelled around the world by following its languages.
We began in Africa with Amharic, travelled to Asia to discover Khasi and returned to Europe to explore Ladin. This week, we cross the ocean and arrive in North America, in Northern California, to learn about the Hupa language. Its traditional name is Na Mixine’, which broadly means “the language of the people of Hoopa Valley”.
But Hupa is not simply a language that uses different words from English. It offers a different way of organising experience, describing actions and observing the world.
Where is the Hupa language spoken?
The traditional Hupa territory is located along the lower Trinity River, in Humboldt County, north-western California.
It lies about an hour from the Pacific coast, in an area of mountains, rivers and great redwood forests. The Hupa people still live in Hoopa Valley and have their own tribal government, cultural institutions and educational programmes.
Hupa belongs to the Dene language family, also known as Athabaskan. This large family includes languages spoken in Alaska, western Canada and the south-western United States.
This means that Hupa is distantly related to Navajo and several Apache languages. It is surprising to discover that peoples separated by thousands of kilometres can preserve evidence of an ancient linguistic relationship.
Hupa or Hoopa: which spelling is correct?
The two spellings can cause some confusion.
Hupa is normally used for the people and their language. Hoopa, however, appears in the geographical and official names Hoopa Valley and Hoopa Valley Tribe.
The people call themselves Na, while their language is called Na Mixine’.
We can therefore say:
- Hupa people or Na;
- Hupa language or Na Mixine’;
- Hoopa Valley when referring to the territory.
When was the Hupa language born?
We cannot give Hupa an exact date of birth.
Languages do not suddenly appear in a particular year. They develop and change slowly from one generation to the next. Hupa developed during the long history of the Dene language family and was spoken in Northern California long before Europeans arrived.
The first major written collections date from the beginning of the twentieth century. The linguist Pliny Earle Goddard transcribed Hupa texts between 1901 and 1902 and later published studies of Hupa language and culture.
During the twentieth century, other researchers, including Edward Sapir and Victor Golla, continued this work together with Hupa speakers and community elders.
Today, their recordings, transcriptions and collections of words are valuable not only to linguists, but especially to Hupa descendants who want to reclaim the language of their families.
A language that builds enormous words
One of the most interesting features of Hupa is the central role of the verb.
In English, we might say:
I pick up that object.
In Hupa, the verb can provide much more information: who performs the action, what is affected, how the action happens and even the shape or texture of the object.
A Hupa verb can be imagined as a backpack. Different prefixes are placed before the root, and each one has a specific function. The result can be a very complex word that would require a whole sentence in English.
For example, the choice of verb may change according to the type of object being picked up:
- ya’winłiq’ is used in an example involving an object with a dough-like texture;
- ya’wiłkyo describes picking up something cloth-like.
In other words, in Hupa it may not be enough to say “Pick it up”. The language might want to know: “Pick up what? Is it soft, long, compact or similar to a piece of cloth?”
It is almost like having a quality-control system built directly into the verb!
A rather flexible word order
Many languages in the Dene family tend to place the verb at the end of a sentence. Hupa, however, is more flexible than many of its relatives.
Some elements can also appear after the verb. This freedom allows speakers to organise a sentence according to the information they want to emphasise.
The subject can also be expressed inside the verb through a prefix:
- niwhkya means “I am big”;
- ch’iningkya means “he is big”.
The part that changes at the beginning of the verb helps us understand who has that characteristic.
What do the colons and apostrophes mean?
When looking at a Hupa word, we often find colons, apostrophes and unfamiliar letters:
Na Mixine’
These marks are not decorations.
A colon generally indicates that the preceding vowel should be pronounced for longer. Therefore, a: lasts longer than a simple a.
An apostrophe can indicate a brief closing of the throat or accompany consonants pronounced with a small burst of air.
The Hupa alphabet also contains the letter ł, a voiceless “l”. To produce it, air passes along the sides of the tongue without making the vocal cords vibrate.
This may seem difficult to English speakers, but English also has sounds and spellings that surprise language learners. Just ask someone to explain why “though”, “through”, “thought” and “tough” are not pronounced in the same way!
Some words in the Hupa language
Here are some expressions found in the Hupa dictionary created from the work of community members and linguists:
| Hupa | English |
|---|---|
| he | hello |
| kileh! | hello! |
| nuniwhtsis-te | goodbye, see you |
| xa’gya’ne’ | goodbye, farewell |
| xinay! | friends! |
| ła’ | one |
An expression connecting people, language and land
The Hupa language immersion programme uses this sentence:
Niwhong-xw xokyunsa’an ayundit’e ma: k’iwinya’nya, xine, ninisa.
The programme gives the following meaning:
“In a good way their hearts will be towards people, language and the land.”
This is not simply an elegant way of encouraging children to study. The sentence expresses an important idea: people, language and territory are not separate elements.
Learning Hupa also means learning about the places, stories, animals, plants and relationships that gave life to its words.
For this reason, the educational programme often takes children outdoors: the land itself becomes a classroom.
Is the Hupa language extinct?
The situation of Hupa is extremely delicate.
Verdena Leona Chase Parker, one of the last great traditional speakers and a central figure in documenting the language, passed away in 2026 at the age of ninety. Hupa was her first language, and throughout her life she recorded stories, words and teachings so that they would not be lost.
She worked with linguists, teachers and family members and helped establish the Hupa Language Immersion Nest, a programme where children can hear and use the language.
Her family recalled that one of her greatest wishes was to hear Na children speaking Hupa again.
Today, there is no longer a known community of people who acquired Hupa as a fully fluent first language. However, simply calling it “dead” does not tell the whole story.
There are teachers, learners, courses, recordings, dictionaries, summer camps, children’s groups and immersion programmes. The community is not simply keeping Hupa inside an archive: it is working to bring the language back into everyday life.
The Xine organisation therefore speaks of language resurgence. Its goal is to create a new community of speakers who will be able to pass Hupa on to future generations.
A dictionary that can speak
The online Hupa dictionary does not contain translations alone.
It includes traditional texts, examples, verb forms, audio recordings and stories. Some words can be heard directly through the voices of people who used them in everyday life.
The archive also contains recordings of Verdena Parker telling stories and even talking about her cat.
Nobody has invented a dictionary that can meow yet, but the Hupa dictionary has come surprisingly close!
Why learn about a language spoken by so few people?
We may think that it is useful to study only languages with millions of speakers. However, the value of a language does not depend on the number of people who speak it.
Every language shows us another possibility of the human mind:
- a different way of organising a sentence;
- a different way of describing an object;
- a special relationship with the land;
- stories and knowledge that cannot be translated perfectly;
- the memory of a living community.
Hupa teaches us that a language can become fragile, but it can also be reclaimed when a community decides to teach it to its children again.
A voice may become silent. Its words, however, can continue to travel.
FAQ
Yes. Hupa and Navajo both belong to the large Dene or Athabaskan language family. However, they are separate languages and are spoken in geographically distant areas.
A colon normally indicates a long vowel. A form such as a: should therefore be pronounced for longer than a simple a.
After the passing of the last fully fluent traditional speakers, Hupa is no longer normally transmitted as a first language within families. However, Hupa teachers and organisations are creating new speakers through courses, learning materials and immersion programmes.
