Salish–Spokane–Kalispel language

Salish is taught at the Nkwusm Salish Immersion School, in Arlee, Montana.^[4][5][6][7] Public schools in Kalispell, Montana offer language classes, a language nest, and intensive training for adults.^[8] An online Salish Language Tutor and online Kalispel Salish curriculum are available.^[9][10] A dictionary, "Seliš nyoʔnuntn: Medicine for the Salish Language," was expanded from 186 to 816 pages in 2009;^[11] children's books and language CDs are also available.^[12]

Salish Kootenai College offers Salish language courses, and trains Salish language teachers at its Native American Language Teacher Training Institute as a part of its ongoing efforts to preserve the language.^[13][14] As of May 2013, the organization Yoyoot Skʷkʷimlt ("Strong Young People") is teaching language classes in high schools.^[15]

Salish-language Christmas carols are popular for children's holiday programs, which have been broadcast over the Salish Kootenai College television station,^[16] and Salish-language karaoke has become popular at the annual Celebrating Salish Conference, held in Spokane, Washington.^[17][18]As of 2013, many signs on U.S. Route 93 in the Flathead Indian Reservation were including the historic Salish and Kutenai names for towns, rivers, and streams, and the Missoula City Council was seeking input from the Salish-Pend d'Oreille Culture Committee regarding appropriate Salish-language signage for the City of Missoula.^[19]

Salish edit

Vowels edit

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.

Consonants edit

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.

The post-velars are normally transcribed as uvular consonants: ⟨q, qʼ, χ, qʷ, qʷʼ, χʷ⟩.

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].

Spokane edit

Vowels edit

Spokane vowels show five contrasts: /a/, /e/, /i/, /o/ and /u/, but almost all examples of /a/ and /o/ are lowered from /e/ and /u/, respectively, when those precede uvulars, or precede or follow pharyngeals. Unstressed vowels are inserted to break up certain consonant clusters, with the vowel quality determined by the adjacent consonants. The epenthetic vowel is often realized as /ə/, but also /ɔ/ before rounded uvulars, and /ɪ/ before alveolars and palatals.^[20]

Consonants edit

The consonant inventory of Spokane differs from Salish somewhat, including plain and glottalized central alveolar approximants /ɹ/ and /ˀɹ/, and a uvular series instead of post-velar.^[20]

Stress edit

Spokane words are polysynthetic, typically based on roots with CVC(C) structure, plus many affixes. There is one main stress in each word, though the location of stress is determined in a complex way (Black 1996).^[20][21]

Given its polysynthetic nature, Salish-Spokane-Kalispel encodes meaning in single morphemes rather than lexical items. In the Spokane dialect specifically, the morphemes ¬–nt and –el', denote transitivity and intransitivity, respectively. Meaning, they show whether or not a verb takes a direct object or it does not. For example, in (1) and (2), the single morphemes illustrate these properties rather than it being encoded in the verb as it is in English.

Something that is unique to the Spokane dialect is the SUCCESS aspect morpheme: -nu.^[22] The SUCCESS marker allows the denotation that the act took more effort than it normally would otherwise. In (3) and (4) we can see this particular transformation.

The SUCCESS aspect and an OUT-OF-CONTROL morpheme reduplication, found in other Native languages, are commonly found together in Spokane Salish. An OUT-OF-CONTROL reduplication morpheme denotes that the action was done by accident. Below, (5), (6) and (7) exemplify this.

The intransitive morpheme that describes extra effort is –el'. Barry Carlson states that:

"Spokane intransitive success forms, created with -el', emphasize that a subject's control requires extra effort in an event and they focus the duration of this effort well before the event beginning. This makes the predication a result. Thus, their true meaning can only be seen in a larger context."

That is to say, that for intransitive instances it is context driven and therefore extra context is needed in order to use the morpheme –el'. Example (8) derived from (1) illustrates this:

Salish–Spokane–Kalispel language test of Wiki How at Wikimedia Incubator

For a list of words relating to Salish–Spokane–Kalispel language, see the Salish–Spokane–Kalispel language category of words in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Nkwusm Salish Language Revitalization Institute
• Seliš u Qlispé Nuwewlštn, The Salish & Pend d'Oreille Comprehensive, Sequenced Language Curriculum
• Char-Koosta News Salish lessons
• Salish language, Kalispel Tribe website, written and audio online course
• "Salish Language Tutor, Story Teller". Kalispel Tribe. Archived from the original on 2014-03-17. Retrieved 2013-02-18.
• Seliš Nuwewlštn, A Beginning Course in Salish & Pend d'Oreille Dialect, Salish Institute, Flashcards, Snʔawʔawtn 2: Level 2, Book 2
• Language of the Kalispel, Gonzaga University
• Spokane Salish Blog
• "Flathead, aka Kalispel, Kalispel-Pend d'Oreille, Kalispel-Pend D'oreille". Endangered Languages Project. Archived from the original on 2016-03-17. Retrieved 2013-02-18.
• Salish language books and CDs, from Nkwusm
• Connolly, Thomas E., S. J. (1958). Quay-Lem U En-Chow-Men. Retrieved 2014-03-01.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• OLAC resources in and about the Kalispel-Pend d'Oreille language

Vocabulary and dictionaries edit

• Salish Words Archived 2014-04-27 at the Wayback Machine, Salish/Pend d'Oreille Culture Committee
• Sounds of the Kalispel, English-Kalispel
• Learn Spokane Salish Picture Dictionary
• Dictionaries, Language of the Kalispel, 1800s
• English to Salish Dictionary, 2005
• Pete, Tachini (2010). Seliš nyoʔnuntn = Medicine for the Salish language: English to Salish translation dictionary (2nd ed.). Pablo, MT : Lincoln, NE: Salish Kootenai College Press. ISBN 978-1934594063.
• Salish language flashcard decks

Audio edit

• Salish Audio, Salish-Pend d'Oreille Culture Committee
• Montana Salish (Flathead), UCLA Phonetics Lab Archive
• Flathead-Kalispel language - Audio Bible stories and lessons

Video edit

• Salish Language Salish Kootenai College
• Nkwusm Salish Language School YouTube channel
• Salish stories, from Seliš Nuwewlštn, A Beginning Course in Salish & Pend d'Oreille Dialect