[1] Ohlone comprises eight attested varieties: Awaswas, Chalon, Chochenyo (also spelt as Chocheño), Karkin, Mutsun, Ramaytush, Rumsen, and Tamyen.

Milliken (2008),[10] himself an ethnohistorian and not a linguist, shifted his position in 2008 to follow Callaghan, referring to separate Costanoan languages rather than dialects.

Golla (2011) states that all Costanoan languages in the vicinity of San Francisco Bay, with the exception of Karkin, were mutually intelligible.

[11] The Ohlone native people belonged to one or more tribes, bands or villages, and to one or more of the eight linguistic group regions (as assigned by ethnolinguists).

(The word that Kroeber coined to designate California tribes, bands and villages, tribelet, has been published in many records but is advisably offensive and incorrect, per the Ohlone people.

Ethnolinguists have used this to some advantage to create phonetic tables giving some semblance of languages, notably the Selected Costanoan Words by Merriam.

[17] A partial table of words comes from Indian Names for Plants and Animals Among California and other Western North American Tribes by Clinton Merriam.