Eastern Pomo Language

Eastern Pomo Language

Eastern Pomo, also known as Clear Lake Pomo, is an extinct Pomoan language formerly spoken around Clear Lake in Lake County, California by one of the Pomo peoples. It was not mutually intelligible with the other Pomoan languages. Prior to contact with Europeans, it was spoken along the northern and southern shores of Clear Lake to the north of San Francisco, and in the coast mountains west of Sacramento Valley. Eastern Pomo shared borders in the north with the Patwin and the Yuki languages, in the south with the Lake Wappo, the Wappo, the Southeastern Pomo, the Southern Pomo, the Central Pomo, the Northern Pomo, and the Lake Miwok. They also shared a border to the west with the Northern Pomo.

The southern and northern areas in which Eastern Pomo was spoken were geographically separate, and apparently represented differing dialects,split by certain lexical and phonological differences. Contemporary Eastern Pomo speakers refer to the north shore dialect area as Upper Lake, and the south shore dialect area as Big Valley.