- Montana Salish language
-
Salish Language Revitalization Institute school bus in Missoula, 2011
Salish Séliš Spoken in Montana Native speakers < 124 (date missing) Language family Salishan- Southern Interior Salish
- Salish
Language codes ISO 639-3 either:
fla – Flathead
spo – SpokaneThis page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. The Salish or Séliš language (pronounced /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.
Contents
Phonology
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
/ PalatalLabio-
velarUvular 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].
References
- "Phonetic Structures of Montana Salish". Flemming, Ladefoged, & Thomason, 1994. In UCLA Working Papers in Phonetics 87: Fieldwork Studies of Targeted Languages II
Further reading
- Giorda, Joseph, and Gregory Mengarini. A Dictionary of the Kalispel or Flat-Head Indian Language. [St. Ignatius]: St. Ignatius print, Montana, 1877.
- Post, John A., and Brenda J. Speck. An Edition of Father Post's Kalispel Grammar. Missoula: University of Montana, 1980.
- Vogt, Hans. The Kalispel Language, An Outline of the Grammar with Text, Translations and Dictionary. Oslo: I kommisjon hos J. Dybwad, 1940.
External links
Categories:- Language articles with undated speaker data
- Interior Salishan languages
- Languages of the United States
- Southern Interior Salish
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
