| Salish | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Séliš | ||||
| Spoken in | Montana | |||
| Native speakers | < 124 (date missing) | |||
| Language family |
Salishan
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| Language codes | ||||
| ISO 639-3 | either: fla – Flathead spo – Spokane |
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The Salish or Séliš language ( /ˈseɪlɪʃ/), here called Montana Salish to distinguish it from the Salish language family to which it gave its name, also known as Kalispel–Pend d'oreille and Kalispel–Spokane–Flathead, is a Salishan language spoken (as of 2005) by about 64 elders of the Flathead Nation in north-central Montana and of the Kalispel Indian Reservation it north-eastern Washington state, and by another 50 elders (as of 2000) of the Spokane Indian Reservation of Washington.
Dialects are spoken by the Spokane (Npoqínišcn), Kalispel (Qalispé), Pend d'Oreilles, and Bitterroot Salish (Séliš). The total population was 8,000 in 1977, but most have switched to English.
As with many other languages of northern North America, Salish is polysynthetic; like other languages of the Mosan language area, there is no clear distinction between noun and verb. Salish is famous for native translations that treat all lexical Salish words as verbs or clauses in English, for instance translating a two-word clause that what would appear to mean "I-killed a-deer" as I killed it. It was a deer.
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Salish has five vowels, /a e i o u/, plus an epenthetic schwa [ə] which occurs between an obstruent and a sonorant consonant, or between two unlike sonorants. (Differences in glottalization do not cause epenthesis, and in long sequences not all pairs are separated, for example in /sqllú/ → [sqəllú] "tale", /ʔlˀlát͡s/ → [ʔəlˀlát͡s] "red raspberry", and /sˀnmˀné/ → [səʔnəmˀné] "toilet". No word may begin with a vowel.
Salish has pharyngeal consonants, which are rare worldwide and uncommon but not unusual in the Mosan Sprachbund to which Salish belongs. It is also unusual in lacking a simple lateral approximant and simple velar consonants (/k/ only occurs in loanwords), though again this is known elsewhere in the Mosan area.
| Bilabial | Alveolar | Postalveolar / Palatal |
Labio- velar |
Uvular | Pharyngeal | Glottal | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| central | lateral | plain | labial | plain | labial | ||||||
| Nasal | plain | m | n | ||||||||
| glottalized | ˀm | ˀn | |||||||||
| Plosive | plain | p | t | kʷ | q | qʷ | ʔ | ||||
| ejective | pʼ | tʼ | kʷʼ | qʼ | qʷʼ | ||||||
| Affricate | plain | ts | tʃ | ||||||||
| ejective | tsʼ | tɬʼ | tʃʼ | ||||||||
| Fricative | s | ᵗɬ | ʃ | xʷ | χ | χʷ | h | ||||
| Approximant | plain | ᵈl ~ ᵈɮ | j | w | ʕ | ʕʷ | |||||
| glottalized | ˀl | ˀj | ˀw | ˀʕ | ˀʕʷ | ||||||
Salish contrasts affricates with stop–fricative sequences. For example, [ʔiɬt͡ʃt͡ʃeˀn] "tender, sore" has a sequence of two affricates, whereas [stiʕít.ʃən] "killdeer" has a tee-esh sequence. All stop consonants are clearly released, even in clusters or word-finally. Though they are generally not aspirated, aspiration often occurs before obstruents and epenthetic schwas before sonorants. For example, the word /t͡ʃɬkʷkʷtˀnéˀws/ "a fat little belly" is pronounced [t͡ʃɬkʍkʍtʰəʔnéʔʍs]; likewise, /t͡ʃt͡ʃt͡sʼéˀlʃt͡ʃn/ "woodtick" is pronounced [t͡ʃt͡ʃt͡sʼéʔt͡ɬʃᵗʃən], and /ppíˀl/ is [pʰpíḭᵗɬə̥].