Tillamook language

Tillamook
Native to United States
Region Northwestern Oregon
Ethnicity Tillamook, Siletz
Extinct 1972, with the death of Minnie Scovell[1]
Dialects
  • Tillamook
  • Siletz
Language codes
ISO 639-3 til
Glottolog till1254[2]

Tillamook is an extinct Salishan language, formerly spoken by the Tillamook people in northwestern Oregon, United States. The last fluent speaker was Minnie Scovell who died in 1972.[3] In an effort to prevent the language from being lost, a group of researchers from the University of Hawaii interviewed the few remaining Tillamook-speakers and created a 120-page dictionary.[4]

Phonology

Vowels

Front Back
High i ə
Low æ ɑ

Consonants

Alveolar Postalveolar
/ palatal
Velar Uvular Glottal
Central Lateral Unrounded "Rounded" Unrnd. "Rnd."
Stop t k kᵓ q qᵓ ʔ
Ejective kᵓʼ qᵓʼ
Affricate t͡s t͡ʃ
Ejective affricate t͡sʼ t͡ɬʼ t͡ʃʼ
Fricative s ɬ ʃ x xᵓ χ χᵓ h
Nasal n
Approximant l j ɰᵓ

Internal Rounding

The so-called "rounded" consonants (traditionally marked with the diacritic ʷ, but here indicated with ), including rounded vowels and w (/ɰᵓ/), are not actually labialized. The acoustic effect of labialization is created entirely inside the mouth by cupping the tongue. Uvulars with this distinctive internal rounding have "a kind of ɔ timbre" while "rounded" front velars have ɯ coloring. These contrast and oppose otherwise very similar segments having ɛ or ɪ coloringthe "unrounded" consonants.

/w/ is also formed with this internal rounding instead of true labialization, making it akin to [ɰ]. So are vowel sounds formerly written as /o/ or /u/, which are best characterized as the diphthong /əɰ/ with increasing internal rounding.[5]

Notes

Bibliography

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