Shoshonean

American  

[shoh-shoh-nee-uhn, shoh-shuh-nee-uhn] / ʃoʊˈʃoʊ ni ən, ˌʃoʊ ʃəˈni ən /

noun

plural

Shoshoneans,

plural

Shoshonean

1. (in some, especially earlier, classifications) a grouping of four branches of the Uto-Aztecan language family including Numic, Hopi, and several languages of southern California.

2. a member of a group speaking a Shoshonean language.

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adjective

1. of or relating to the Shoshonean-speaking peoples or their languages.

Shoshonean British  

/ ʃəʊˈʃəʊnɪən, ˌʃəʊʃəˈniːən /

noun

1. a subfamily of North American Indian languages belonging to the Uto-Aztecan family, spoken mainly in the southwestern US

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Etymology

Origin of Shoshonean

First recorded in 1890–95; Shoshone + -an

Example Sentences

First came Wallace J. "Chief" Newman, a full-blooded Shoshonean Indian who coached 155-lb.

From Time Magazine Archive

It is doubtful whether Shoshonean peoples hunted extensively east of the Continental Divide in the period following their eighteenth-century retreat from the northern Plains and before the disappearance of the buffalo west of the Rockies.

From Shoshone-Bannock Subsistence and Society by Murphy, Robert F.

They served to store seeds, and seem often to have been hidden in caves and out-of-the-way spots by Shoshonean desert tribes.

From Mohave Pottery by Harner, Michaell J.

They belong to the great Shoshonean family, and are a short, stocky, gentle people, given to agriculture, sheep raising, basketry and pottery, and a little weaving and silver work.

From The Grand Canyon of Arizona; how to see it by James, George Wharton

They were members of the Sha-hap-ti-an family of North Americans—a family not so large as the Algonquian, Siouan, Shoshonean and several other families, yet important.

From Boys' Book of Indian Warriors and Heroic Indian Women by Sabin, Edwin L. (Edwin Legrand)