The
Makah language is the
IndigenousIndigenous languages of the Americas are spoken by indigenous peoples from the southern tip of South America to Alaska and Greenland, encompassing the land masses which constitute the Americas. These indigenous languages consist of dozens of distinct language families as well as many language...
language spoken by the
MakahThe Makah are a Native American people from the northwestern corner of the Continental United States in Washington. The Makah tribe lives in and around the town of Neah Bay, Washington, a small fishing village along the Strait of Juan de Fuca where it meets the Pacific Ocean...
people. Makah has been extinct as a
first languageA first language is the language a human being learns from birth...
since 2002, when its last fluent native speaker died. However, it survives as a second language, and the Makah tribe is attempting to revive the language, including through preschool classes. The endonymous name for Makah is qʷi·qʷi·diččaq.
Makah is spoken by the
MakahThe Makah are a Native American people from the northwestern corner of the Continental United States in Washington. The Makah tribe lives in and around the town of Neah Bay, Washington, a small fishing village along the Strait of Juan de Fuca where it meets the Pacific Ocean...
people who reside in the northwestern corner of the
Olympic Peninsula|||The Olympic Peninsula is the large arm of land in western Washington state of the USA, that lies across Puget Sound from Seattle. It is bounded on the west by the Pacific Ocean, the north by the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and the east by Puget Sound and the Hood Canal...
of
WashingtonWashington is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. Washington was carved out of the western part of Washington Territory which had been ceded by Britain in 1846 by the Oregon Treaty as settlement of the Oregon Boundary Dispute. It was admitted to the Union as the...
state, on the south side of the
Strait of Juan de FucaThe Strait of Juan de Fuca is a large body of water about long forming the principal outlet for the Georgia Strait and Puget Sound, connecting both to the Pacific Ocean...
.
The
Makah language is the
IndigenousIndigenous languages of the Americas are spoken by indigenous peoples from the southern tip of South America to Alaska and Greenland, encompassing the land masses which constitute the Americas. These indigenous languages consist of dozens of distinct language families as well as many language...
language spoken by the
MakahThe Makah are a Native American people from the northwestern corner of the Continental United States in Washington. The Makah tribe lives in and around the town of Neah Bay, Washington, a small fishing village along the Strait of Juan de Fuca where it meets the Pacific Ocean...
people. Makah has been extinct as a
first languageA first language is the language a human being learns from birth...
since 2002, when its last fluent native speaker died. However, it survives as a second language, and the Makah tribe is attempting to revive the language, including through preschool classes. The endonymous name for Makah is qʷi·qʷi·diččaq.
Makah is spoken by the
MakahThe Makah are a Native American people from the northwestern corner of the Continental United States in Washington. The Makah tribe lives in and around the town of Neah Bay, Washington, a small fishing village along the Strait of Juan de Fuca where it meets the Pacific Ocean...
people who reside in the northwestern corner of the
Olympic Peninsula|||The Olympic Peninsula is the large arm of land in western Washington state of the USA, that lies across Puget Sound from Seattle. It is bounded on the west by the Pacific Ocean, the north by the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and the east by Puget Sound and the Hood Canal...
of
WashingtonWashington is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. Washington was carved out of the western part of Washington Territory which had been ceded by Britain in 1846 by the Oregon Treaty as settlement of the Oregon Boundary Dispute. It was admitted to the Union as the...
state, on the south side of the
Strait of Juan de FucaThe Strait of Juan de Fuca is a large body of water about long forming the principal outlet for the Georgia Strait and Puget Sound, connecting both to the Pacific Ocean...
. It is closely related to
Nuu-chah-nulthNuu-chah-nulth is a Wakashan language spoken in the Pacific Northwest of North America, on the west coast of Vancouver Island from Barkley Sound to Quatsino Sound in British Columbia, by the Nuu-chah-nulth people...
and Ditidaht, which are languages of the
First NationsFirst Nations is a term of ethnicity that refers to the Aboriginal peoples in Canada, who are neither Inuit nor Métis. There are currently over 600 recognised First Nations governments or bands spread all across Canada, roughly half of which are in the provinces of Ontario and British Columbia...
of the west coast of
Vancouver IslandVancouver Island is a large island in British Columbia, Canada, one of several North American regions named after George Vancouver, the British Royal Navy officer who explored the Pacific coast of North America between 1791 and 1794....
on the north side of the strait, in the Canadian province of
British ColumbiaBritish Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is famed for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . In 1871, it became the sixth province of Canada.The capital of British Columbia is Victoria, the 15th largest metropolitan region in Canada...
. Makah is the only member of the Wakashan language family in the United States, with the other members spoken by in
British ColumbiaBritish Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is famed for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . In 1871, it became the sixth province of Canada.The capital of British Columbia is Victoria, the 15th largest metropolitan region in Canada...
, from
Vancouver IslandVancouver Island is a large island in British Columbia, Canada, one of several North American regions named after George Vancouver, the British Royal Navy officer who explored the Pacific coast of North America between 1791 and 1794....
to the
Central CoastThe British Columbia Coast or BC Coast is Canada's western continental coastline on the Pacific Ocean. The usage is synonymous with the term West Coast of Canada....
region.
Makah, Nuu-chah-nulth and Ditidaht belong to the Southern Nootkan branch of the
WakashanWakashan is a family of languages spoken in British Columbia around and on Vancouver Island, and in the northwestern corner of the Olympic Peninsula of Washington state, on the south side of the Strait of Juan de Fuca....
family. The Northern Wakashan languages, which are
Kwak'walaKwak'wala is the Indigenous language spoken by the Kwakwaka'wakw. It belongs to the Wakashan language family. There are about 250 Kwak'wala speakers today, which amounts to 5% of the Kwakwaka'wakw population...
,
Heiltsuk-OowekyalaHeiltsuk-Oowekyala is a Northern Wakashan language spoken in the Central Coast region of the Canadian province of British Columbia, spoken by the Wuikinuxv and Heiltsuk peoples. It has two dialects, Heiltsuk and Oowekyala, which unlike other Wakashan languages are tonal in character...
and
HaislaThe Haisla language is a First Nations language spoken by the Haisla people of the North Coast region of the Canadian province of British Columbia, who are based in the village of Kitaamat 10 km from the town of Kitimat at the head of the Douglas Channel, a 120km fjord that serves as a waterway for...
, are spoken farther north, beyond the territory of the
Nuu-chah-nulthThe Nuu-chah-nulth are one of the Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast of Canada...
people.
Phonology
The
phonemeIn a language or dialect, a phoneme is the smallest segmental unit of sound employed to form meaningful contrasts between utterances....
s (distinctive sounds) of Makah are presented below in the Makah alphabet; if the symbol in the native alphabet differs from the
IPAThe International Phonetic Alphabet
["The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic...]
symbol, the IPA equivalent will be given in brackets.
Consonants
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Labial Labials are consonants articulated either with both lips or with the lower lip and the upper teeth...
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AlveolarAlveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth...
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PostalveolarPostalveolar consonants are consonants articulated with the tongue near or touching the back of the alveolar ridge, further back in the mouth than the alveolar consonants, which are at the ridge itself, but not as far back as the hard palate .Among the fricatives and affricates, a subtype called...
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VelarVelars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum)....
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UvularUvulars are consonants articulated with the back of the tongue against or near the uvula, that is, further back in the mouth than velar consonants. Uvulars may be plosives, fricatives, nasal stops, trills, or approximants, though the IPA does not provide a separate symbol for the approximant, and...
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GlottalGlottal consonants, also called laryngeal consonants, are consonants articulated with the glottis. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the so-called fricatives, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have; in fact, some do not consider...
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lateralLaterals are "L"-like consonants pronounced with an occlusion made somewhere along the axis of the tongue, while air from the lungs escapes at one side or both sides of the tongue....
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plain |
labial |
plain |
labial |
| Stops A stop, plosive, or occlusive is a consonant sound produced by stopping the airflow in the vocal tract. The terms plosive and stop are usually used interchangeably, but they are not perfect synonyms. Plosives are oral stops with a pulmonic egressive airstream mechanism. The term is also used to...
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| Ejective In phonetics, ejective consonants are voiceless consonants that are pronounced with simultaneous closure of the glottis. In the phonology of a particular language, ejectives may contrast with aspirated or tenuis consonants...
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| Affricates Affricates are consonants that begin as stops but release as a fricative rather than directly into the following vowel.- Samples :...
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| Ejective In phonetics, ejective consonants are voiceless consonants that are pronounced with simultaneous closure of the glottis. In the phonology of a particular language, ejectives may contrast with aspirated or tenuis consonants...
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| Fricatives Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German , the final consonant of Bach; or...
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| Approximants Approximants are speech sounds that could be regarded as intermediate between vowels and "typical" consonants. In the articulation of approximants, articulatory organs produce a narrowing of the vocal tract, but leave enough space for air to flow without much audible turbulence. Approximants are...
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Vowels
There are five "short" vowels (actually lax), written
a,
e,
i,
o, and
u, and pronounced , , , , and ), five "long" vowels (written
a·,
e·,
i·,
o·, and
u·, and pronounced , , , , and ), and six "
diphthongIn phonetics, a diphthong, or , is a contour vowel—that is, a unitary vowel that changes quality during its pronunciation, or "glides", with a smooth movement of the tongue from one articulation to another, as in the English words eye, boy, and cow...
s" (written
ay,
oy,
ey,
iy,
aw, and
uy, and pronounced , , , , , and ).
Morphology
Like other Wakashan languages, Makah inflects verbs for
evidentialityIn linguistics, evidentiality is, broadly, the indication of the nature of evidence for a given statement, that is, whether evidence exists for the statement and/or what kind of evidence exists. An evidential is the particular grammatical element that indicates evidentiality...
, indicating the level and source of the speaker's knowledge about a statement. Some examples are shown in the following table:
| Example |
Translation |
Evidential |
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| "I hear he found it" |
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| "he's blowing a whistle" |
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| "It looks like a canoe" |
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| "I see you ate" |
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| "He's probably singing" |
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Alongside those examples, compare corresponding sentences without the evidentials:
hi·dawʔal, "he found it";
č̓apac̓, "it's a canoe";
haʔuk̓alic, "you're eating";
dudu·k̓al, "he's singing".
External links