ararahih ikxunikîich-ha
Káruk Language Notes

Jim Ferrara

áraar, a person.
pa¹áraaras, the people.
araráhih, person-language, the Káruk Language.
araráchuupha, person-talk, (another way to refer to the language).
ararákuupha, person-doings, Indian law (and/or) Indian custom; the way a
  person is supposed to do things.
arareethivtháaneen, person-country, Káruk Country; where araráhih is
  spoken and ararákuupha are lived by.

Scholarly Measures
From outside academics, part of whose profession involves theorizing on
the origins of the diverse languages of what is now called Northwestern
California, comes the notion that the Káruk Language is a descendant of the
most ancient inhabitants of the coastal mountains here. Among the other
languages thought by them to also have the same locally ancient origins are
Shasta (including the New River Shasta and Konomihu, of the upper and middle
reaches of the Salmon River, respectively), Achumawi, Atsugewi (Pit River
area), Northern and Central Yana and Yahi (Ishi's language), and the many
Pomo languages of the Lake and Mendocino County areas. The Chumash and Yuman
languages of distant Southern California, like the Karuk language, are said to be related in this family of Hokan languages.
 
Academics' categorizations of indigenous languages into families are based on some fairly obvious and some more theoretical similarities between them. The degree of differentiation among the languages categorized as familial is thought to reflect the amount of time that they have been functioning autonomously of their ancient predecessor language. Having now oversimplified the techniques used by archaeological branch comparative linguistics, it might be noted that their results further suggest that the Yurok and Wiyot Language are related to Algonquin languages of the east coast of Turtle Island and have probably been spoken on the lower Klamath and the nearby coast for two or three thousand years.  The Hupa, Tolowa, Chilula (Redwood Creek) as well as the numerous other closely related languages spoken in the coastal mountains south and southeast of Humboldt Bay, are all relatively closely related to Navaho, Apache and the Dine        Lower Salmon River, near Somes Bar
of Alaska. It is thought that the Hupa, Tolowa, Chilula (etc.) languages have been spoken in their current locations for perhaps five to  eight hundred years.
 
Such explanations and timelines are mild-mannered and at the same time wild speculations. Even more speculative are the more distant dates attributed to the speciation of the Hokan family languages.  If the chronological history of the Karuk language could actually be traced "all the way back," the time frame would extend sometime beyond 10,000 years.  Of course, no one really has a clue as to how long ago it was that the pa áraaras kun íinaatihanik, The People, came into existence anciently, as the píkva, stories, tell it. Another thing that is known from the stories, which the measurers have yet to fathom, is that before that, before the people
came into existence, the animals were people too.

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