Salishan languages

The Salishan (also Salish) languages are a group of languages of the Pacific Northwest (the Canadian province of British Columbia and the American states of Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana).^[2] They are characterised by agglutinativity and astonishing consonant clusters — for instance the Nuxálk word xłp̓x̣ʷłtłpłłskʷc̓ (IPA: [xɬpʼχʷɬtʰɬpʰɬːskʷʰt͡sʼ]), meaning "he had had [in his possession] a bunchberry plant", has thirteen obstruent consonants in a row with no vowels. The Salishan languages are a geographically continuous block, with the exception of the Nuxálk (Bella Coola), in the Central Coast of British Columbia, and the extinct Tillamook language, to the south on the coast of Oregon.

The terms Salish and Salishan are used interchangeably by linguists and anthropologists studying Salishan but this is confusing in regular English usage, because the name Salish or Selisch is the endonym of the Flathead Nation. Linguists later applied the name to related languages in the Pacific Northwest. Many of the peoples do not have self-designations (autonyms) in their languages; they frequently have specific names for local dialects, as the local group was more important culturally than larger tribal relations.

All Salishan languages are extinct or endangered—some extremely so, with only three or four speakers left. Few Salish languages currently have more than one to two thousand speakers. Practically all Salishan languages have fluent, daily speakers who are over sixty years of age, and many have only speakers over eighty. Salishan languages are most commonly written using the Americanist phonetic notation to account for the various vowels and consonants that do not exist in most modern alphabets. Many groups have evolved their own distinctive uses of the Latin alphabet, however, such as the St'at'imc.

Family division

The Salishan language family consists of twenty-three languages. Below is a list of Salishan languages, dialects, and subdialects. The genetic unity among the Salish languages is evident. Neighboring groups have communicated often, to the point that it is difficult to untangle the influence each dialect and language has upon others.

A 1969 study found that "language relationships are highest and closest among the Interior Division, whereas they are most distant among the Coast Division."^[3]

This list is a linguistic classification that may not correspond to political divisions. In contrast to classifications made by linguistic scholars, many Salishan groups consider their particular variety of speech to be a separate language rather than a dialect.

Flathead Indians (1903)

Bella Coola

1. Nuxálk language (AKA Nuxálk, Salmon River)

• Kimsquit
• Nuxalk
• Kwatna
• Tallheo

Coast Salish

A. Central Coast Salish (AKA Central Salish)

2. Comox

• K'omoks (Sahtloot) (AKA Qʼómox̣ʷs)
• Tla A'min (Homalco/Xwemalhkwu–Klahoose–Sliammon/Tla A-min) (AKA ʔayʔaǰúθəm)

3. Halkomelem

Island (AKA Hulʼq̱ʼumiʼnumʼ, Həl̕q̓əmín̓əm̓)

• Cowichan
• Snuneymuxw and Snaw-Na-Was
• Halalt
• Stz'uminus (Chemainus)
• Lamalcha
• Malahat
• Penelakut
• Lyackson
• Lake Cowichan

Downriver (AKA Hunqʼumʔiʔnumʔ)

• Musqueam
• Katzie
• Kwantlen
• Snokomish
• Tsawwassen
• Kwikwetlem
• Tsleil-waututh

Upriver (AKA Upper Sto:lō, Halqʼəméyləm)

• Sts'Ailes
• Chilliwack area bands
• Tait
• Skway

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

Northern

• Skagit (AKA Skaǰət)
• Snohomish (AKA Sduhubš)

Southern

• Duwamish-Suquamish (AKA Dxʷduʔabš)
• Puyallup (AKA Spuyaləpubš)
• Nisqually (AKA Sqʷaliʔabš)

5. Nooksack (AKA Łə́čələsəm, Łə́čælosəm) (†)

6. Pentlatch (AKA Pənƛ̕áč) (†)

7. Sechelt (AKA Seshelt, Sháshíshálh, Shashishalhem, Šášíšáɬəm)

8. Squamish (AKA Sḵwx̱wú7mesh snichim, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, Sqwxwu7mish, Sqʷx̣ʷúʔməš)

i. Straits Salish group (AKA Straits)

9. Klallam (AKA Clallam, Nəxʷsƛ̕áy̓emúcən) (†)

• Becher Bay
• Eastern
• Western

10. Northern Straits (AKA Straits)

• Lummi (AKA Xwlemiʼchosen, Xʷləmiʔčósən) (†)
• Pauquachin (AKA
• Saanich (AKA SENĆOŦEN, Sənčáθən, Sénəčqən)
• Samish (AKA Siʔneməš)
• Semiahmoo (AKA Tah-tu-lo) (†)
• Sooke (AKA Tʼsou-ke, C̓awk) (†)
• Songhees (AKA Lək̓ʷəŋín̓əŋ) (†)

11. Twana (AKA Skokomish, Sqʷuqʷúʔbəšq, Tuwáduqutšad) (†)

• Quilcene
• Skokomish (AKA Sqʷuqʷúʔbəšq)

B. Tsamosan (AKA Olympic) (†)

i. Inland

12. Cowlitz (AKA Lower Cowlitz, Sƛ̕púlmš) (†)

13. Upper Chehalis (AKA Q̉ʷay̓áyiɬq̉) (†)

• Oakville Chehalis
• Satsop
• Tenino Chehalis

ii. Maritime

14. Lower Chehalis (AKA Łəw̓ál̕məš) (†)

• Humptulips
• Westport-Shoalwater
• Wynoochee

15. Quinault (AKA Kʷínayɬ) (†)

• Queets
• Quinault

C. Tillamook (†)

16. Tillamook (AKA Hutyéyu) (†)

Siletz

• Siletz

Tillamook

• Garibaldi-Nestucca
• Nehalem

Interior Salish

A. Northern

17. Shuswap (AKA Secwepemctsín, səxwəpməxcín)

Eastern

• Kinbasket
• Shuswap Lake

Western

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

18. Lillooet (AKA Lilloet, St'át'imcets)

• Lillooet-Fountain
• Mount Currie–Douglas

19. Thompson River Salish (AKA 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 (AKA Snchitsuʼumshtsn, snčícuʔumšcn)

21. Columbia-Moses (AKA Columbia, Nxaʔamxcín)

• Chelan
• Entiat
• Columbian
• Wenatchee (AKA Pesquous)

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

Northern

• Quilchena & Spaxomin^[4]
• Arrow Lakes
• Penticton
• Similkameen
• Vernon

Southern

• Colville-Inchelium
• Methow
• San Poil–Nespelem
• Southern Okanogan

23. Montana Salish (Kalispel–Pend d'Oreille language, Spokane–Kalispel–Bitterroot Salish–Upper Pend d'Oreille)

• Salish (AKA Séliš, Bitterroot Salish, Flathead)
• Kalispel (AKA Qalispé)

• Chewelah
• Kalispel (AKA Qlispé, Lower Pend d'Oreille, Lower Kalispel)
• Upper Pend d’Oreile (AKA Sɫq̓etk͏ʷmsčin̓t, Čłqetkʷmcin, Qlispé, Upper Kalispel)

• Spokane (AKA Npoqínišcn)

Pentlatch, Nooksack, Twana, Lower Chehalis, Upper Chehalis, Cowlitz, Klallam, 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 family is well established. The most plausible connection is with the language isolate Kutenai (Kootenai), but this is not solidly established.

Edward Sapir suggested that the Salishan languages might be related to the Wakashan and Chimakuan languages in a hypothetical Mosan family. This proposal persists primarily through Sapir’s stature: with little evidence for such a family, no progress has been made in reconstructing it.^[5]

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)

Syntax

Salishan languages are known for their polysynthetic nature. A verb stem will often have at least one affix, which is typically a suffix. These suffixes perform a variety of functions, such as transitive, causative, reciprocal, reflexive, and applicative. Applicative affixes seem to be present on the verb when the direct object is central to the event being discussed, but isn’t the theme of the sentence. The direct object may be a recipient, for example.

It may also refer to a related noun phrase, like the goal a verb intends to achieve, or the instrument used in carrying out the action of the verb. In the sentence ‘The man used the axe to chop the log with.’, the axe is the instrument and is indicated in Salish through an applicative affix on the verb. Applicative affixes increase the number of affixes a verb can take on, that is, its syntactic valence. They are also known as "transitivizers" because they can change a verb from intransitive to transitive. For example, in the sentence 'I got scared.', 'scared' is intransitive. However, with the addition of an applicative affix, which is syntactically transitive, the verb in Salish becomes transitive and the sentence can come to mean ‘I got scared of you.’.

Although there is a wide array of Salish languages, they all share some basic traits. All are verb initial languages, with VSO (verb-subject-object) being the most common word order. Some Salishan languages allow for VOS and SVO as well. There is no case marking, but central noun phrases will often be preceded by determiners while non-central NPs will take prepositions. Some Salishan languages are ergative, and many take unique object agreement forms in passive statements. Subject and object pronouns usually take the form of affixes that attach to the verb. All Salish languages are head-marking. Possession is marked on the possessed noun phrase as either a prefix or a suffix, while person is marked on predicates. In Central Salish languages like Tillamook and Shuswap, only one plain NP is permitted aside from the subject.

There are three general patterns of negation among the Salishan languages. The most common pattern involves a negative predicate in the form of an impersonal and intransitive stative verb, which occurs in sentence initial position. The second pattern involves a sentence initial negative particle that is often attached to the sentence’s subject, and the last pattern simply involves a sentence initial negative particle without any change in inflectional morphology or a determiner/complementizer. In addition, there is a fourth restricted pattern that has been noted only in Squamish.

Nounlessness

Salishan languages (along with the Wakashan and the extinct Chimakuan languages) exhibit predicate/argument flexibility. All content words are able to occur as the head of the predicate (including words with typically 'noun-like' meanings that refer to entities) or in an argument (including those with 'verb-like' meanings that refer to events). Words with noun-like meanings are automatically equivalent to [be + NOUN] when used predicatively, such as Lushootseed sbiaw which means '(is a) coyote'. Words with more verb-like meanings, when used as arguments, are equivalent to [one that VERBs] or [VERB+er]. For example, Lushootseed ʔux̌ʷ means '(one that) goes'.

The following examples are from Lushootseed.

An almost identical pair of sentences from St’át’imcets demonstrates that this phenomenon is not restricted to Lushootseed.

This and similar behaviour in other Salish and Wakashan languages has been used as evidence for a complete lack of a lexical distinction between nouns and verbs in these families. This has become controversial in recent years. David Beck of the University of Alberta contends that there is evidence for distinct lexical categories of 'noun' and 'verb' by arguing that, although any distinction is neutralised in predicative positions, words that can be categorised as 'verbs' are marked when used in syntactic argument positions. He argues that Salishan languages are omnipredicative, but only have 'uni-directional flexibility' (not 'bi-directional flexibility'), which makes Salishan languages no different from other omnipredicative languages such as Arabic and Nahuatl, which have a clear lexical noun-verb distinction.

Beck does concede, however, that the Lushootseed argument ti ʔux̌ʷ ('the one who goes', shown in example sentence (1b) above) does represent an example of an unmarked 'verb' used as an argument and that further research may potentially substantiate M. Dale Kinkade's 1983 position that all Salishan content words are essentially 'verbs' (such as ʔux̌ʷ 'goes' and sbiaw 'is a coyote') and that the use of any content word as an argument involves an underlying relative clause. For example, with the determiner ti translated as 'that which', the arguments ti ʔux̌ʷ and ti sbiaw would be most literally translated as 'that which goes' and 'that which is a coyote' respectively.^[6][7][8]

Historical linguistics

There are twenty-three languages in the Salishan language family. They occupy the Pacific Northwest, with all but two of them being concentrated together in a single large area. It is clear that these languages are related, but it’s difficult to track the development of each because their histories are so interwoven. The different speech communities have interacted a great deal, making it nearly impossible to decipher the influences of varying dialects and languages on one another. However, there are several trends and patterns that can be historically traced to generalize the development of the Salishan languages over the years.

The variation between the Salishan languages seems to depend on two main factors: the distance between speech communities and the geographic barriers between them. The diversity between the languages corresponds directly to the distance between them. Closer proximity often entails more contact between speakers, and more linguistics similarities are the result. Geographic barriers like mountains impede contact, so two communities that are relatively close together may still vary considerably in their language use if there is a mountain dividing them.

The rate of change between neighboring Salishan languages often depends on their environments. If for some reason two communities diverge, their adaptation to a new environment can separate them linguistically from each other. The need to create names for tools, animals, and plants creates an array of new vocabulary that divides speech communities. However, these new names may come from borrowing from neighboring languages, in which case two languages or dialects can grow more alike rather than apart. Interactions with outside influences through trade and intermarriage often result in language change as well.

Some cultural elements are more resilient to language change, namely, religion and folklore. Salishan language communities that have demonstrated change in technology and environmental vocabulary have often remained more consistent with their religious terminology. Religion and heavily ingrained cultural traditions are often regarded as sacred, and so are less likely to undergo any sort of change. Indeed, cognate lists between various Salishan languages show more similarities in religious terminology than they do in technology and environment vocabulary. Other categories with noticeable similarities include words for body parts, colors, and numbers. There would be little need to change such vocabulary, so it’s more likely to remain the same despite other changes between languages. The Coast Salishan languages are less similar to each other than are the Interior Salishan languages, probably because the Coast communities have more access to outside influences.

Another example of language change in the Salishan language family is word taboo, which is a cultural expression of the belief in the power of words. Among the Coast languages, a person’s name becomes a taboo word immediately following their death. This taboo is lifted when the name of the deceased is given to a new member of his/her lineage. In the meantime, the deceased person’s name and words that are phonetically similar to the name are considered taboo and can only be expressed via descriptive phrases. In some cases these taboo words are permanently replaced by their chosen descriptive phrases, resulting in language change.

In popular culture

Stanley Evans has written a series of crime fiction novels that use Salish lore and language.

An episode of Stargate SG-1 ("Spirits", 2x13) features a culture of extraterrestrial humans loosely inspired by Pacific coastal First Nations culture, and who speak a language referred to as "ancient Salish".

References

Bibliography

• Beck, David. (2000). Grammatical Convergence and the Genesis of Diversity in the Northwest Coast Sprachbund. Anthropological Linguistics 42, 147–213.
• Boas, Franz, et al. (1917). Folk-Tales of Salishan and Sahaptin Tribes. Memoirs of the American Folk-lore Society, 11. Lancaster, Pa: American Folk-Lore Society.
• 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.
• Davis, Henry. 2005. On the Syntax and Semantics of Negation in Salish. International Journal of American Linguistics 71.1, January 2005.
• Davis, H. and Matthewson, L. 2009. Issues in Salish Syntax and Semantics. Language and Linguistics Compass, 3: 1097–1166. Online.
• Flathead Culture Committee. (1981). Common Names of the Flathead Language. St. Ignatius, Mont: The Committee.
• Jorgensen, Joseph G. 1969. Salish Language and Culture. 3. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Publications.
• Kiyosawa, Kaoru; Donna B. Gerdts. 2010. Salish Applicatives. Leiden, Netherlands: Koninklijke Brill NV.
• 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. (2002).Salish Etymological Dictionary. Missoula, MT: Linguistics Laboratory, University of Montana. ISBN 1-879763-16-8
• Liedtke, Stefan. (1995). Wakashan, Salishan and Penutian and Wider Connections Cognate Sets. Linguistic Data on Diskette Series, no. 09. Munchen: Lincom Europa,z\v1995.
• Pilling, James Constantine. (1893). Bibliography of the Salishan Languages. Washington: G.P.O..
• Pilling, James Constantine (2007). Bibliography of the Salishan Languages. Reprint by Gardners Books. ISBN 978-1-4304-6927-8
• Silver, Shirley; Wick R. Miller. 1997. American Indian languages: Cultural and Social Contexts. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
• Hamill, Chad (2012). Songs of power and prayer in the Columbia Plateau: the Jesuit, the medicine man, and the Indian hymn singer. Corvallis: Oregon State University Press. ISBN 9780870716751.  Salishan language hymns.
• 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.

External links

Look up Salish in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• 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)
• 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
• Nkwusm Salish Language Institute
• Tulalip Lushootseed Language Web Site
• Recordings of Montana Salish Wordlists with phonetic transcription by Peter Ladefoged