page_title: Achumawi language
section_title: Current status
hierarchical_section_title: Achumawi language / Current status
caption_attribution_description: Ahjumawi Native American photo
context_page_description: The Achumawi language is the indigenous language spoken by the Pit River people in the northeast corner of present-day California. The term Achumawi is an anglicization of the name of the Fall River band, ajúmmááwí, from ajúmmá "river". nine bands, with dialect differences primarily between upriver and downriver, demarcated by the Big Valley mountains east of the Fall River valley.
context_section_description: Today, the Achumawi language is severely endangered. Out of an estimated 1500 Achumawi people remaining in northeastern California, perhaps ten spoke the language in 1991, with only eight in 2000. 
  As of 2013, a mobile app was planned for the language.
  Louise Davis, who lives in northern California, is almost tearful when she describes hearing people using the language of her Pit River tribe in conversation for the first time. It happened years ago when an older man from another part of the state met up with her grandmother.
  It was such a powerful, emotional experience that Davis is driven to use flashcards at home with her children and do whatever it takes to preserve the language.
  “You can say things in our language that you can’t say in English,” she said.
  Testing out a language app in February [2013], she said she couldn’t wait to see it being used among young people in the tribe.
caption: An elderly Ahjumawi Indian woman, ca. 1920
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