Haisla language

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Haisla
Region Central British Columbia coast inlet, Douglas Channel head, near Kitimat
Ethnicity Haisla people
Native speakers
 170  (2011 census)[1]
Wakashan
  • Northern
    • Haisla
Dialects
Kitamaat
Kitlope
Language codes
ISO 639-3 has

The Haisla language or X̄a'’islak̓ala / X̌àh̓isl̩ak̓ala 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 120 km fjord that serves as a waterway for the Haisla as well as for the aluminum smelter and accompanying port of the town of Kitimat. The Haisla and their language, along with that of the neighbouring Heiltsuk and Wuikinuxv peoples, were in the past incorrectly called "Northern Kwakiutl".

The name Haisla is derived from the Haisla word x̣àʼisla or x̣àʼisəla, meaning 'dwellers downriver”''.

Haisla is a Northern Wakashan (Kwakiutlan) language spoken by several hundred people. Haisla is geographically the northernmost Wakashan language. Its nearest Wakashan neighbor is Oowekyala.

Phonology

Haisla is closely related to the other North Wakashan languages, Oowekyala, Heiltsuk, Kwak'wala, and to a lesser extent Nuuchahnulth (Nootka), Nitinat, and Makah. The Haisla language consists of two dialects, sometimes defined as sublanguages – C̓imo'c̓a (Kitimaat) (also known as X̅aʼislakʼala - Haisla in the narrower sense) and Gitlo'p (Kitlope) (also known as X̅enaksialakʼala or X̣enaksialak’ala).

Consonants[2]
Bilabial Alveolar Palatal Velar Uvular Glottal
central lateral pal. lab. plain lab.
Nasal plain m n
glottalized mˀ nˀ
Plosive voiceless p t kʲ kʷ q qʷ ʔ
voiced b d ɡʲ ɡʷ ɢ ɢʷ
ejective pʼ tʼ kʼʲ kʼʷ qʼ qʼʷ
Affricate voiceless ts tɬ
voiced dz dl
ejective tsʼ tɬʼ
Fricative s ɬ xʲ xʷ χ χʷ h

Haisla has a wide range of consonants, with the plain plosives being either voiced or voiceless. All aspirated and glottalized plosives in Haisla are voiceless. All fricatives are voiceless as well.

Similar to the other Wakashan languages, Haisla does not have large vowel systems. The vowels seen in the language are [i], [a], [u], [o], [e] and [ə].

Morphology

Haisla is a verb initial, VSO language, with “highly polysynthetic, suffixing, [and] possibly with no (lexical) N-V distinction”[3] . Just like the other Wakashan languages, Haisla is made up of multifaceted words made up out of a single root and extended through multiple expansions or reduplication. These can further be altered by lexical or grammatical suffixes, and modal clitics. [4]. The majority of roots cannot function as independent words, those that can often take on different meanings. One example of this can be seen with the root bek^w, when combined with the stems -es or -ala, mean either 'Sasquatch' or 'talk' respectively.

References

  1. ↑ Haisla reference at Ethnologue (17th ed., 2013)
  2. ↑ "The Language". Haisla Nation. Retrieved 31 January 2014. 
  3. ↑ Emmon, Bach; E. Jelinek, A. Kratzer (1995). "A Note on Quantification and Blankets in Haisla". Quantification in Natural Languages (Kluwer Academic Publishers) 2: 13-20. 
  4. ↑ Emmon, Bach (December 2002). "On The Surface Verb q’ay’ai| qela". Linguistics and Philosophy 25 (5-6): 531-544. 

Bibliography

  • Lincoln, Neville J. & Rath, John C.. 1986. Phonology, dictionary and listing of roots and lexical derivatives of the Haisla language of Kitlope and Kitimaat, B. C. Vol.1. Ottawa: National Museums of Canada.
  • Mithun, Marianne. (1999). The languages of Native North America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

External links


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