Clear Lake and Sulfur Bank

Welcome to the homepage of the Southeastern Pomo Language Project at the University of California, Berkeley.

One of the seven Pomoan languages classified and named by Samuel Barrett according to their geographic distribution in 1908, Southeastern Pomo is an endangered language historically spoken in the area around Clear Lake, East Lake, and Lower Lake in Lake County, California. Varieties are also referred to as Sulfur Bank Pomo, Elem Pomo, and Lower Lake Pomo. Today's speakers and learners are mostly affiliated with the Elem Pomo Tribe, a community of approximately 250 members based in Clearlake Oaks, California.

Most research on Southeastern Pomo and the other Pomoan languages has come out of Berkeley. In addition to Barrett, past Pomo scholars from Berkeley have included George Grekoff, Abraham Halpern, Sally McLendon, Julius Moshinsky, and Robert Oswalt. The Southeastern Pomo Language Project continues in the documentary tradition of these linguists, actively recording the sounds, words, structure, and usage of the Southeastern Pomo language from the few speakers alive today. The variety of Southeastern Pomo presented on these pages is mainly Elem Pomo, referred to by its speakers as xay tsnu, meaning "wood words".