All of the groups discussed in this chapter except the Bannock speak
the Shoshone-Comanche, or Shoshone, language. While there were only
minor differences of dialect between Shoshone speakers, the Bannock
language was almost identical with Northern Paiute. Informants found
an especially close affinity between Bannock and the language of the
Oregon Paiute, who were frequently referred to as "Bannock" also and
were sometimes distinguished from the Fort Hall Bannock only by the
statement that "they live in Burns" (a town in Oregon). While some
informants referred to the Oregon speakers of Mono-Bannock as
"Paiute," this term was generally reserved for the population of
west-central Nevada, and "Pyramid Lake" was the locale in which the
Idaho Shoshone generally placed the "Paiute." The inhabitants of Duck
Valley Indian Reservation were not so vague; they readily
distinguished between Shoshone and "Paiute" on linguistic and other
grounds. This is understandable because the Shoshone had lived a long
time on the same reservation as the Oregon speakers of Mono-Bannock,
who were officially designated as Paiute. While no vocabularies were
collected on the Fort Hall Reservation among either the Shoshone or
Bannock populations, data from informants on the similarity of Paiute
and Bannock more than confirm Steward's statement (1938, p. 198):
The linguistic similarity of the Bannock and Northern Paiute
(see vocabularies, pp. 274-275) leaves no doubt that they once
formed a single group, though within historic times they have
been separated by 200 miles.
The vocabularies to which Steward refers were taken from Northern
Paiute at Mill City, a town southwest of Winnemucca, Nevada, and at
George's Creek, in Owens Valley, California. It is probable that
correspondences would have been even closer if vocabularies had been
taken among the Northern Paiute of Oregon, for Fort Hall Bannock
informants specifically stated that their language was more akin to
that of the Oregon Paiute; the Pyramid Lake people were said to "talk
fast" or "talk funny." The frequent designation of the Oregon Paiute
as "Bannock" by both Bannock and Shoshone at Fort Hall Reservation
bespeaks the linguistic similarity or virtual identity of the
languages of the respective groups.
As for Shoshone and Bannock, the two languages were not sufficiently
similar to be mutually intelligible, although there are a great many
cognate words. However, they were not so far removed from one another
as to make bilingualism difficult. There was considerable bilingualism
among the population of the Fort Hall plains.