Rumsen (also known as Rumsien, San Carlos Costanoan and Carmeleno) is one of eight language divisions of the Ohlone (Coatanoan) Native American people of Northern California. The Rumsen language was spoken from the Pajaro River to Point Sur, and on the lower courses of the Pajaro, as well as on the Salinas and Carmel Rivers, and the region of the present-day cities of Salinas, Monterey and Carmel. One of eight languages within the Costanoan (alia...
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Rumsen (also known as Rumsien, San Carlos Costanoan and Carmeleno) is one of eight language divisions of the Ohlone (Coatanoan) Native American people of Northern California. The Rumsen language was spoken from the Pajaro River to Point Sur, and on the lower courses of the Pajaro, as well as on the Salinas and Carmel Rivers, and the region of the present-day cities of Salinas, Monterey and Carmel. One of eight languages within the Costanoan (alias Ohlone) branch of the Utian family, it became one of two important native languages spoken at the Mission San Carlos Borroméo de Carmelo founded in 1770, the other being Esselen.
The Rumsen local tribe, from which the language name was derived, held the lower Carmel River Valley and neighboring Monterey Peninsula at the time of Spanish colonization. Their population of approximately 400-500 people was distributed among at least five villages within their territory.. An early twentieth-century mapping of a specific village called Rumsen on...
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