The Makah language is the

indigenous language An indigenous language, or autochthonous language, is a language that is native to a region and spoken by indigenous peoples. This language is from a linguistically distinct community that originated in the area. Indigenous languages are not neces ...

spoken by the Makah. Makah has not been spoken as a

first language A first language, native tongue, native language, mother tongue or L1 is the first language or dialect that a person has been exposed to from birth or within the critical period. In some countries, the term ''native language'' or ''mother to ...

since 2002, when its last fluent native speaker died. However, it survives as a second language, and the Makah tribe is attempting to revive the language, including through preschool classes. The

endonym An endonym (from Greek: , 'inner' + , 'name'; also known as autonym) is a common, ''native'' name for a geographical place, group of people, individual person, language or dialect, meaning that it is used inside that particular place, group, ...

for the Makah is ''qʷi·qʷi·diččaq''.Davidson, Matthew (2002)
''Studies in Southern Wakashan (Nootkan) Grammar''
Ph.D. dissertation, SUNY Buffalo, p. 94, p. 161, p. 222, p. 169, p. 320, p. 256, p. 260 The Makah reside in the northwestern corner of the

Olympic Peninsula The Olympic Peninsula is a large arm of land in western Washington that lies across Puget Sound from Seattle, and contains Olympic National Park. It is bounded on the west by the Pacific Ocean, the north by the Strait of Juan de Fuca, a ...

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...

on the south side of the Strait of Juan de Fuca. It is closely related to

Nuu-chah-nulth The Nuu-chah-nulth (; Nuučaan̓uł: ), also formerly referred to as the Nootka, Nutka, Aht, Nuuchahnulth or Tahkaht, are one of the indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast in Canada. The term Nuu-chah-nulth is used to describe fifte ...

and Ditidaht, which are languages of the First Nations of the west coast of

Vancouver Island Vancouver Island is an island in the northeastern Pacific Ocean and part of the Canadian province of British Columbia. The island is in length, in width at its widest point, and in total area, while are of land. The island is the largest by ...

on the north side of the strait, in the

Canadian province Within the geographical areas of Canada, the ten provinces and three territories are sub-national administrative divisions under the jurisdiction of the Canadian Constitution. In the 1867 Canadian Confederation, three provinces of British Nor ...

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, for ...

. Makah is the only member of the Wakashan language family in the United States, with the other members spoken in

, from

to the Central Coast region. Makah, Nuu-chah-nulth and Ditidaht belong to the Southern Nootkan branch of the

Wakashan Wakashan is a family of languages spoken in British Columbia around and on Vancouver Island, and in the northwestern corner of the Olympic Peninsula of Washington state, on the south side of the Strait of Juan de Fuca. As is typical of the Nor ...

family. The Northern Wakashan languages, which are Kwak'wala,

Heiltsuk-Oowekyala Heiltsuk-Oowekyala is a Northern Wakashan (Kwakiutlan) language spoken in the Central Coast region of the Canadian province of British Columbia, spoken by the Wuikinuxv (Oweekeno) and Heiltsuk peoples. It has two dialects, Heiltsuk The Heilt ...

and Haisla, are spoken farther north, beyond the territory of the

Phonology

The

phoneme In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language. For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-wes ...

s (distinctive sounds) of Makah are presented below in the Makah alphabet; if the symbol in the native alphabet differs from the

IPA IPA commonly refers to: * India pale ale, a style of beer * International Phonetic Alphabet, a system of phonetic notation * Isopropyl alcohol, a chemical compound IPA may also refer to: Organizations International * Insolvency Practitioners A ...

symbol, the IPA equivalent will be given in brackets.The phoneme inventory and Makah alphabet are from pg. 422 of Renker and Gunther (1990) and fro
Makah Alphabet
/ref>

Consonants

Rare among the world's languages, Makah has no

nasal Nasal is an adjective referring to the nose, part of human or animal anatomy. It may also be shorthand for the following uses in combination: * With reference to the human nose: ** Nasal administration, a method of pharmaceutical drug delivery * ...

s, a trait it shares with the neighboring Quileute language.

Vowels

There are five phonologically short vowels (written ⟨a e i o u''⟩'' and pronounced , , , , and ) and five phonologically long vowels (written ⟨a· e· i· o· u·⟩ and pronounced , , , , and ). There are also and six

diphthong A diphthong ( ; , ), also known as a gliding vowel, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of the speech ...

s (written ⟨ay oy ey iy aw uy⟩, pronounced , , , , , and ).

Morphology

"Like other Wakashan languages, Makah inflects

verb A verb () is a word ( part of speech) that in syntax generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual descr ...

s for evidentiality, indicating the level and source of the speaker's knowledge about a statement. Some examples are shown in the following table: Alongside those examples, compare corresponding sentences without the evidentials: hi·dawʔal, "he found it"; č̓apac̓, "it's a canoe"; haʔuk̓alic, "you're eating"; dudu·k̓al, "he's singing"." The Makah word encodes much information; Davidson (2002) outlines the formal word structure below (pg. 160), The 'unextended word' consists of a root (the 'base'), lexical suffixes, and aspectual suffixes. It carries the 'dictionary meaning' of the word, while the clitics represent what can be thought of as 'inflections' for other grammatical categories. The unextended word, *Lexical suffixes: Come in two varieties; nuclear, which can change the base's meaning or part of speech, and restrictive, which add to the base's meaning without altering the word class. The latter include locational and directional suffixes. *Aspectual suffixes: While they vary in realization, the extended word can mark for the following aspects, *:Perfective, Imperfective, Graduative, Durative, Continuative, Repetitive, & Iterative The 'expanded unextended' word is formed by the addition of a peripheral suffix, which can change the part of speech while and often contains an aspectual value. These suffixes 'cross-cut' the core/nuclear distinction. The order of the clitic sequence is as follows: The modal-pronominal clitics are often combined, creating a separate set of pronominal clitics for each mood. Makah marks for the indicative, purposive, quotative, subordinate, inferential, mirative, conditional, relative, content interrogative and polar interrogative moods.

References

Bibliography

*Renker, Ann M. and Gunther, Erna (1990). "Makah". In "Northwest Coast", ed. Wayne Suttles. Vol. 7 of ''Handbook of North American Indians'', ed. William C. Sturtevant. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution.

External links

The Wakashan Linguistics Page

at native-languages.org

Makah language and culture classes at Neah Bay High School, 2006-2007

OLAC resources in and about the Makah language
{{DEFAULTSORT:Makah Language Makah Wakashan languages Indigenous languages of the Pacific Northwest Coast Indigenous languages of Washington (state) Endangered Wakashan languages