The Language
Owens Valley Paiute (OVP) is an Indigenous language of eastern California. It is sometimes called Eastern Mono or Monache in older literature.
Where it sits in the family
Owens Valley Paiute belongs to the Numic branch of the large Uto-Aztecan language family, which stretches from the Great Basin down into Mexico. Within Numic, Mono is part of the Western Numic subgroup, alongside Northern Paiute. So while OVP and Northern Paiute are relatives, they are not fully mutually intelligible.
Uto-Aztecan
└─ Numic
└─ Western Numic
├─ Mono
│ ├─ Western Mono
│ └─ Owens Valley Paiute
└─ Northern Paiute
Writing the language
OVP is written with the Latin alphabet plus a couple of special letters that English lacks. The most visible is ü, a high central/back unrounded vowel (the ü in words like nüü "I" and tüba "piñon"), and ŵ, a voiced bilabial fricative written with a circumflex-w (as in mahuŵa "they"). Vowel length and the glottal stop (written with an apostrophe, as in isha' "coyote") are meaningful and distinguish words.
Sound changes at word boundaries (such as the fortis/lenis alternation where t → d, p → b, s → z, k → g after certain prefixes) are a regular feature of the grammar. See the Grammar section for how these play out in practice.
See also The Nüümü and Payahuunadü and Revitalization and the Kubishi Dictionary.