The language is attested to some extent in colonial sources such as Sitjar (1860), but the principal published documentation is Mason (1918).
The main modern grammatical study, based on Mason's data and on the field notes of John Peabody Harrington and William H. Jacobsen, is Turner (1987), which also contains a complete bibliography of the primary sources and discussion of their orthography.
Antoniaño is "sometimes also termed Sextapay, associated with the area of the Franciscan Mission of San Antonio de Padua in Monterey County.
[3][4] The charts of consonants and vowels in the Salinan language: Voiced plosives /b d ɡ/ likely came as a result of Spanish influence.
He also writes, "While the statement is not definite, it seems that acorns from live-oaks were preferred for mush, those of deciduous oaks for bread.
Local knowledge provides critical clues as to what species the Salinan names are referencing.
The task is complicated by the diverse expressions of phenotypes and hybridizations in California oaks, as well as the lack of research in the topic and Mason's incomplete and erroneous information.
(2) T`io'i is possibly the tanoak, Notholithocarpus densifloris, which is an evergreen oak-like species that only grows near the coast, prevalent near redwood groves in coastal canyons, where oaks tend to be less common.
Most oaks are higher up on the steep Santa Lucia mountains, so having tanoaks available would make them a preferred food source during shoreline visits.
Although there is significant inaccuracy in Mason's list of deciduous oaks - and he admits to being unsuccessful in his attempt to match Salinan terms to oak species - his research is the singular published source listing Salinan botanical terms.
Several hypotheses have been proposed to make sense of Mason's research on Salinan words for oaks.
(4) P`a'pix and (5) p`a`t are described as major food sources, whereas (6) cmo' was only an auxiliary source of acorns, and it is known that indigenous Californians heavily consumed valley and blue oaks, so it is improbable that (6) cmo' is an umbrella term for deciduous oaks with smooth, non-spined leaves.
Jolon oaks, which are common on Salinan land, would possibly be classified under either (4), (5), or (6) perhaps depending on which tree they more closely matched.
In this case, Mason would be incorrect to consider it a deciduous oak, but correct to describe its small, serrated leaves and plentiful, large acorns.
Given that his list of animals and plants is quite long, it would be strange for a major species of oak to be overlooked.
They would provide only enough acorns to act as a supplemental food source, which again coheres with Mason's description of the tree's role in Salinan life.
Other botanical terms for which he provides a plural form include: flowers, grass, leaves, acorns, pine nuts, cedars (which may actually mean coast redwoods rather than the California incense cedar, or perhaps includes both), tule reeds, buds, and wood.
In this fourth hypothesis, Mason would be incorrect about (6) being deciduous, but he would be correct about all three species' morphological character and their relative availability as a food source.
Although Mason struggled to understand what oak species correspond to what Salinan terms, his work has provided valuable information.
It appears that Mason's list is not comprehensive of all oak tree names, that it instead focuses on the species with the most valuable food resources.