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Salishan languages
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The Salishan (also Salish) languages are a group of languages of western Canada and the Pacific Northwest of the United States. They are characterised by agglutinativity and astonishing consonant clusters—for instance the Nuxálk word (IPA: ) meaning "he had had a bunchberry plant" has 13 consonants in a row with no vowels.
The terms Salish and Salishan are used interchangeably by Salishan linguists and anthropologists. The name Salish is actually the autonym of Flathead Nation. The name was later extended by linguists to refer to other related languages. Many languages do not have self-designations and instead have specific names for local dialects as the local group was more important culturally than larger tribal relations.
All Salishan languages are endangered—some extremely so with only three or four speakers left. Practically all languages only have speakers who are over sixty years of age, and many languages only have speakers over eighty.
Family division The Salishan language family consists of twenty-three languages. Below is a list of Salishan languages, dialects, and sub-dialects. This list is a linguistic classification that may not correspond to political divisions. Many Salishan groups consider their variety of speech to be a separate language rather than a dialect.
I. Bella Coola
- 1. Nuxálk (a.k.a. Bella Coola, Salmon River)
- Kimsquit
- Bella Coola
- Kwatna
- Tallheo
II. Coast Salish
- A. Central Coast Salish (a.k.a. Central Salish)
2. Comox
- Comox (a.k.a. Q'ómox??s)
- Sliammon (Homalco-Klahoose-Sliammon) (a.k.a. ?ay?ajú??m)
3. Halkomelem Island (a.k.a. Hul'q_'umi'num', h?l?q??mín??m?)
Downriver (a.k.a. Hunq'um?i?num?)
Upriver (a.k.a. Upper Sto:lo, Halq'?méyl?m)
- Chehalis (Canada)
- Chilliwack
- Tait
- Skway
4. Lushootseed (a.k.a. Puget Salish, Skagit-Nisqually, Dx?l?šúcid) Northern
- Skagit (a.k.a. Skaj?t)
- Snohomish (a.k.a. Sduhubš)
Southern
5. Noxws'a7aq (a.k.a. Nooksack ??´c?l?s?m, ??´cælos?m) (†) 6. Pentlatch (a.k.a. P?n??ác) (†) 7. Sháshíshálh (a.k.a. Sechelt, Seshelt, Shashishalhem, šášíšá??m) 8. S?wxwú7mesh snichim (a.k.a. Squamish, Sqwxwu7mish, S?wx_wú7mesh, sq?x??ú?m?š) i. Straits Salish group (a.k.a. Straits) 9. Klallam (a.k.a. Clallam, N?x?s??áy?emúc?n)
- Becher Bay
- Eastern
- Western
10. Northern Straits (a.k.a. Straits)
- Lummi (a.k.a. Xwlemi'chosen, x?l?mi?cós?n) (†)
- Saanich (a.k.a. SENCOTEN, s?ncá??n, sén?cq?n)
- Samish (a.k.a. Si?nem?š)
- Semiahmoo (a.k.a. Tah-tu-lo) (†)
- Sooke (a.k.a. T'sou-ke, c?awk) (†)
- Songhees (a.k.a. L?k????ín???) (†)
11. Twana (a.k.a. Skokomish, Sq?uq?ú?b?šq, Tuwáduqutšad) (†)
- B. Tsamosan (a.k.a. Olympic)
i. Inland 12. Cowlitz (a.k.a. Lower Cowlitz, S??púlmš) (†) 13. Upper Chehalis (a.k.a. Q??ay?áyi?q?) (†)
- Oakville Chehalis
- Satsop
- Tenino Chehalis
ii. Maritime 14. Lower Chehalis (a.k.a. ??w?ál?m?š) (†)
- Humptulips
- Westport-Shoalwater
- Wynoochee
15. Quinault (a.k.a. K?ínay?)
- C. Tillamook
16. Tillamook (a.k.a. Hutyéyu) (†) Siletz
Tillamook
III. Interior Salish
- A. Northern
17. Shuswap (a.k.a. Secwepemctsín, s?xw?pm?xcín) Eastern
Western
- Canim Lake
- Chu Chua
- Deadman's Creek-Kamloops
- Fraser River
- Pavilion-Bonaparte
18. St'at'imcets (a.k.a. Lillooet, Lilloet, St'át'imcets)
- Lillooet-Fountain
- Mount Currie-Douglas
19. Thompson River Salish (a.k.a. Nlaka'pamux, Ntlakapmuk, n?e?kepmxcín, Thompson River, Thompson Salish, Thompson, known in frontier times as the Hakamaugh, Klackarpun, Couteau or Knife Indians)
- Lytton
- Nicola Valley
- Spuzzum-Boston Bar
- Thompson Canyon
- B. Southern
20. Coeur d’Alene (a.k.a. Snchitsu'umshtsn, sncícu?umšcn) 21. Columbian (a.k.a. Columbia, Nxa?amxcín)
22. Colville-Okanagan (a.k.a. Okanagan, Nsilxcín, Nsíylxc?n, ta nukunaqínxc?n) Northern
- Quilchena & Spaxomin
- Head of the Lakes
- Penticton
- Similkameen
- Vernon
Southern
- Lakes-Colville-Inchelium
- Methow
- San Poil-Nespelem
- Southern Okanogan
23. Spokane-Kalispel-Flathead (a.k.a. Kalispel)
Pentlatch, Nooksack, Twana, Lower Chehalis, Upper Chehalis, Cowlitz, and Tillamook are now extinct. Additionally, the Lummi, Semiahmoo, Songhees, and Sooke dialects of Northern Straits are also extinct.
Genetic relationsNo relationship to any other language is well established. The most plausible connection is with the language isolate Kutenai (Kootenai), which is generally considered not unlikely but not solidly established.
Edward Sapir suggested that the Salishan languages may be related to the Wakashan and Chimakuan languages in a hypothetical Mosan family. This proposal persists primarily due to Sapir's stature. There is little evidence for it and no progress has been made in reconstructing such a family.
The Salishan languages, principally Chehalis, contributed greatly to the vocabulary of the Chinook Jargon.
Family features
- post-velar harmony (more areal)
- presence of syllables without vowels
- grammatical reduplication
- nonconcatenation|metathesis]], glottalization)
- tenselessness
- nounlessness (controversial)
External links- (YDLI)
- (Native languages of the Northwest)
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- (Linguist List)
- (includes sound files)
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- (Timothy Montler's site)
- (Timothy Montler's site)
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- by Peter Ladefoged
Bibliography- Bibliography of the Salishan Languages. Gardners Books, 2007. ISBN 9781430469278
- Boas, Franz, et al. Folk-Tales of Salishan and Sahaptin Tribes. Memoirs of the American Folk-lore Society, 11. Lancaster, Pa: American Folk-Lore Society, 1917.
- Czaykowska-Higgins, Ewa; & Kinkade, M. Dale (Eds.). (1997). Salish languages and linguistics: Theoretical and descriptive perspectives. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. ISBN 3-11-015492-7.
- Flathead Culture Committee. Common Names of the Flathead Language. St. Ignatius, Mont: The Committee, 1981.
- Kroeber, Paul D. (1999). The Salish language family: Reconstructing syntax. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press in cooperation with the American Indian Studies Research Institute, Indiana University, Bloomington.
- Kuipers, Aert H. Salish Etymological Dictionary. Missoula, MT: Linguistics Laboratory, University of Montana, 2002. ISBN 1879763168
- Liedtke, Stefan. Pilling, James Constantine. Bibliography of the Salishan Languages. Washington: G.P.O., 1893.
- Thompson, Laurence C. (1973). The northwest. In T. A. Sebeok (Ed.), Linguistics in North America (pp. 979-1045). Current trends in linguistics (Vol. 10). The Hague: Mouton.
- Thompson, Laurence C. (1979). Salishan and the northwest. In L. Campbell & M. Mithun (Eds.), The languages of native America: Historical and comparative assessment (pp. 692-765). Austin: University of Texas Press.
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