Salish

 

(sā'lĭshən, săl'–) , branch of the Algonquian-Wakashan linguistic family, or stock, of North America and spoken by Native Americans of the NW United States and W Canada. See Native American languages.

This article is about the Salish/Salishan language. For the Tacoma, Washington, neighbourhood, see Salishan, Tacoma, Washington.

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 xłp̓x̣ʷłtłpłłskʷc̓ (IPA: [xɬpʼχʷɬtɬpɬːskʷʦʼ]) 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. Qʼómox̣ʷs)
• Sliammon (Homalco-Klahoose-Sliammon) (a.k.a. ʔayʔaǰúθəm)

3. Halkomelem

Island (a.k.a. Hulʼq̱ʼumiʼnumʼ, həl̕q̓əmín̓əm̓)

• Cowichan
• Snuneymuxw/Nanaimo

Downriver (a.k.a. Hunqʼumʔiʔnumʔ)

• Katzie
• Kwantlen
• Musqueam

Upriver (a.k.a. Upper Sto:lo, Halqʼəméyləm)

• Chehalis (Canada)
• Chilliwack
• Tait
• Skway

4. Lushootseed (a.k.a. Puget Salish, Skagit-Nisqually, Dxʷləšúcid)

Northern

• Skagit (a.k.a. Skaǰət)
• Snohomish (a.k.a. Sduhubš)

Southern

• Duwamish-Suquamish (a.k.a. Dxʷduʔabš)
• Puyallup (a.k.a. Spuyaləpubš)
• Nisqually (a.k.a. Sqʷaliʔabš)

5. Noxws'a7aq (a.k.a. Nooksack ɬə́čələsəm, ɬə́čælosəm) (†)

6. Pentlatch (a.k.a. Pənƛ̕áč) (†)

7. Sháshíshálh (a.k.a. Sechelt, Seshelt, Shashishalhem, šášíšáɬəm)

8. Sḵwxwú7mesh snichim (a.k.a. Squamish, Sqwxwu7mish, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, sqʷx̣ʷúʔməš)

i. Straits Salish group (a.k.a. Straits)

9. Klallam (a.k.a. Clallam, Nəxʷsƛ̕áy̓emúcən)

• Becher Bay
• Eastern
• Western

10. Northern Straits (a.k.a. Straits)

• Lummi (a.k.a. Xwlemiʼchosen, xʷləmiʔčósən) (†)
• Saanich (a.k.a. SENĆOŦEN, sənčáθən, sénəčqən)
• Samish (a.k.a. Siʔneməš)
• Semaihmoo (a.k.a. Tah-tu-lo) (†)
• Sooke (a.k.a. Tʼsou-ke, c̓awk) (†)
• Songhees (a.k.a. Lək̓ʷəŋín̓əŋ) (†)

11. Twana (a.k.a. Skokomish, Sqʷuqʷúʔbəšq, Tuwáduqutšad) (†)

• Quilcene
• Skokomish (a.k.a. Sqʷuqʷúʔbəšq)

B. Tsamosan (a.k.a. Olympic)

i. Inland

12. Cowlitz (a.k.a. Lower Cowlitz, Sƛ̕púlmš) (†)

13. Upper Chehalis (a.k.a. Q̉ʷay̓áyiɬq̉) (†)

• Oakville Chehalis
• Satsop
• Tenino Chehalis

ii. Maritime

14. Lower Chehalis (a.k.a. ɬəw̓ál̕məš) (†)

• Humptulips
• Westport-Shoalwater
• Wynoochee

15. Quinault (a.k.a. Kʷínayɬ)

• Queets
• Quinault

C. Tillamook

16. Tillamook (a.k.a. Hutyéyu) (†)

Siletz

• Siletz

Tillamook

• Garibaldi-Nestucca
• Nehalem

III. Interior Salish

A. Northern

17. Shuswap (a.k.a. Secwepemctsín, səxwəpməxcín)

Eastern

• Kinbasket
• Shuswap Lake

Western

• Canim Lake
• Chu Chua
• Deadman's Creek-Kamloops
• Fraser River
• Pavilion-Bonaparte

18. Stʼatʼimcets (a.k.a. Lillooet, Lilloet, St'át'imcets)

• Lillooet-Fountain
• Mount Currie-Douglas

19. Thompson River Salish (a.k.a. Nlakaʼpamux, Ntlakapmuk, nɬeʔkepmxcín, 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. Snchitsuʼumshtsn, snčícuʔumšcn)

21. Columbian (a.k.a. Columbia, Nxaʔamxcín)

• Chelan
• Entiat
• Moses-Columbia
• Wenatchee (a.k.a. Pesquous)

22. Colville-Okanagan (a.k.a. Okanagan, Nsilxcín, Nsíylxcən, ta nukunaqínxcən)

Northern

• Quilchena & Spaxomin [1]
• 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)

• Flathead (a.k.a. Séliš)
• Kalispel (a.k.a. Qalispé)

• Chewelah
• Kalispel
• Pend d’Oreile

• Spokane (a.k.a. Npoqínišcn)

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 relations

No 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 (infixes, metathesis, glottalization)
• tenselessness
• nounlessness (controversial)

External links

• Bibliography of Materials on Salishan Languages (YDLI)
• University of Montana Occasional Papers in Linguistics (UMOPL) (Native languages of the Northwest)
• Coast Salish Culture: an Outline Bibliography
• Coast Salish Collections
• International Conference on Salish and Neighboring Languages
• The Salishan Studies List (Linguist List)
• Okanagan language resources (includes sound files)
• Native Peoples, Plants & Animals: Halkomelem
• Saanich (Timothy Montler's site)
• Klallam (Timothy Montler's site)
• A Bibliography of Northwest Coast Linguistics
• Classification of the Salishan languages reflecting current scholarship
• Ethnologue classification for Salishan
• Nkwusm Salish Language Institute

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. [[Wakashan, Salishan and Penutian and Wider Connections Cognate Sets. Linguistic data on diskette series, no. 09. M unchen: Lincom Europa,z\v1995, 1995.
• 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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