Nuu-chah-nulth (), Nootka (), is a Wakashan language in the

Pacific Northwest The Pacific Northwest (sometimes Cascadia, or simply abbreviated as PNW) is a geographic region in western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Thou ...

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on 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 ...

, from Barkley Sound to

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by the

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 ...

peoples. Nuu-chah-nulth is a Southern Wakashan language related to Nitinaht and Makah. It is the first language of the

indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast The Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast are composed of many nations and tribal affiliations, each with distinctive cultural and political identities. They share certain beliefs, traditions and practices, such as the centrality of sal ...

to have documentary written materials describing it. In the 1780s, Captains Vancouver, Quadra, and other European explorers and traders frequented Nootka Sound and the other Nuu-chah-nulth communities, making reports of their voyages. From 1803–1805 John R. Jewitt, an English

blacksmith A blacksmith is a metalsmith who creates objects primarily from wrought iron or steel, but sometimes from other metals, by forging the metal, using tools to hammer, bend, and cut (cf. tinsmith). Blacksmiths produce objects such as gates, gr ...

, was held captive by chief '' Maquinna'' at Nootka Sound. He made an effort to learn the language, and in 1815 published a memoir with a brief

glossary A glossary (from grc, γλῶσσα, ''glossa''; language, speech, wording) also known as a vocabulary or clavis, is an alphabetical list of terms in a particular domain of knowledge with the definitions for those terms. Traditionally, a gl ...

of its terms.

Name

The provenance of the term "Nuu-chah-nulth", meaning "along the outside f Vancouver Island dates from the 1970s, when the various groups of speakers of this language joined together, disliking the term "Nootka" (which means "go around" and was mistakenly understood to be the name of a place, which was actually called Yuquot). The name given by earlier sources for this language is Tahkaht; that name was used also to refer to themselves (the root ''aht'' means "people").

Phonology

Consonants

The 35 consonants of ''Nuu-chah-nulth'': The pharyngeal consonants developed from mergers of uvular sounds; derives from a merger of and (which are now comparatively rare) while came about from a merger of and (which are now absent from the language).

Vowels

Nuu-chah-nulth vowels are influenced by surrounding consonants with certain "back" consonants conditioning lower, more back vowel

allophone In phonology, an allophone (; from the Greek , , 'other' and , , 'voice, sound') is a set of multiple possible spoken soundsor ''phones''or signs used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, (as in '' ...

s The mid vowels and appear in vocative forms and in ceremonial expressions. is a possible realization of after a glottalized sonorant. In the environment of glottalized resonants as well as ejective and pharyngeal consonants, vowels can be "laryngealized" which often means

creaky voice In linguistics, creaky voice (sometimes called laryngealisation, pulse phonation, vocal fry, or glottal fry) refers to a low, scratchy sound that occupies the vocal range below the common vocal register. It is a special kind of phonation in which ...

. In general, syllable weight determines stress placement; short vowels followed by non-glottalized consonants and long vowels are heavy. In sequences where there are no heavy syllables or only heavy syllables, the first syllable is stressed. Nuu-chah-nulth has phonemic short and long vowels. Traditionally, a third class of vowels, known as "variable length" vowels, is recognized. These are vowels that are long when they are found within the first two syllables of a word, and short elsewhere.

Grammar

Nuu-chah nulth is a polysynthetic language with VSO

word order In linguistics, word order (also known as linear order) is the order of the syntactic constituents of a language. Word order typology studies it from a cross-linguistic perspective, and examines how different languages employ different orders. C ...

. A

clause In language, a clause is a constituent that comprises a semantic predicand (expressed or not) and a semantic predicate. A typical clause consists of a subject and a syntactic predicate, the latter typically a verb phrase composed of a verb wit ...

in Nuu-chah-nulth must consist of at least a

predicate Predicate or predication may refer to: * Predicate (grammar), in linguistics * Predication (philosophy) * several closely related uses in mathematics and formal logic: **Predicate (mathematical logic) **Propositional function **Finitary relation, o ...

. Affixes can be appended to those clauses to signify numerous

grammatical categories In linguistics, a grammatical category or grammatical feature is a property of items within the grammar of a language. Within each category there are two or more possible values (sometimes called grammemes), which are normally mutually exclusive ...

, such as mood, aspect or tense.

Aspect

Aspects in Nuu-chah-nulth help specify an action's extension over time and its relation to other events. Up to 7 aspects can be distinguished: Where each "–" signifies the root.

Tense

Tense can be marked using

affixes In linguistics, an affix is a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word or word form. Affixes may be derivational, like English ''-ness'' and ''pre-'', or inflectional, like English plural ''-s'' and past tense ''-ed''. They ar ...

(marked with a

dash The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen ...

) and clitics (marked with an equal sign). Nuu-chah-nulth distinguishes near future and general future: The first two markings refer to a general event that will take place in the future (similar to how the word ''will'' behaves in English) and the two other suffixes denote that something is expected to happen (compare to the English ''going to''). Past tense can be marked with the ''=mit'' clitic that can itself take different forms depending on the environment and speaker's dialect:

Mood

Grammatical mood in Nuu-chah-nulth lets the speaker express the attitude towards what they're saying and how did they get presented information. Nuu-chah-nulth's moods are: Not counting the articles, all moods take person endings that indicate the subject of the clause.

Vocabulary

The Nuu-chah-nulth language contributed much of the vocabulary of the Chinook Jargon. It is thought that oceanic commerce and exchanges between the Nuu-chah-nulth and other Southern Wakashan speakers with the Chinookan-speaking peoples of the lower Columbia River led to the foundations of the trade jargon that became known as Chinook. Nootkan words in Chinook Jargon include ''hiyu'' ("many"), from Nuu-chah-nulth for "ten", ''siah'' ("far"), from the Nuu-chah-nulth for "sky". A dictionary of the language, with some 7,500 entries, was created after 15 years of research. It is based on both work with current speakers and notes from linguist

Edward Sapir Edward Sapir (; January 26, 1884 – February 4, 1939) was an American Jewish anthropologist-linguist, who is widely considered to be one of the most important figures in the development of the discipline of linguistics in the United States. Sap ...

, taken almost a century ago. The dictionary, however, is a subject of controversy, with a number of Nuu-chah-nulth elders questioning the author's right to disclose their language.

Dialects

Nuu-chah-nulth has 12 different dialects: * Ahousaht * Ehattesaht ( Ehattisaht) * Hesquiat * Kyuquot * Mowachaht * Nuchatlaht * Ohiaht ( Huu.ay.aht) * Clayoquot ( Tla.o.qui.aht) * Toquaht * Tseshaht ( Sheshaht) * Uchuklesaht ( Uchucklesaht) * Ucluelet ( Yuułuʔiłʔatḥ)

Translations of the First Nation names

*''Nuu-Chah-Nulth'' - "all along the mountains and sea." Nuu-chah-nulth were formerly known as "Nootka" by colonial settlers (but they prefer not to be called that, rather Nuu-chah-nulth which better explains how each First Nation is connected to the land and the sea). Some of the names following (Ditidaht, Makah) are not part of the Nuu-chah-nulth political organization, however; all are ''atḥ'' (people). The term ''nuučaanułatḥ'' is also used, meaning "people all along the mountains and the sea." *''Ahousaht'' - People of an open bay/People with their backs to the mountains and lands *''Ucluelet'' - People with a safe landing place for canoes. *''Ehattesaht'' - People of a tribe with many clans *''Checkleset'' – People from the place where you gain strength *''Hesquiaht'' - People who tear with their teeth *''Kyuquot'' - Different people *''Mowachaht'' - People of the deer *''Muchalaht'' – People who live on the Muchalee river *''Nuchatlaht'' - People of a sheltered bay *''Huu-ay-aht'' - People who recovered *''Tseshaht'' - People from an island that reeks of whale remains *''Tla-o-qui-aht'' - People from a different place *''Toquaht'' - People of a narrow passage *''Uchucklesaht'' - People of the inside harbour *''Ditidaht'' - People of the forest *''Hupacasaht'' - People living above the water *''Quidiishdaht (Makah)'' - People living on the point *''Makah'' - People generous with food

Translations of place names

Nuuchahnulth had a name for each place within their traditional territory. These are just a few still used to this day: *''hisaawista (esowista)'' – Captured by clubbing the people who lived there to death,

Esowista Peninsula The Esowista Peninsula is a peninsula in the Clayoquot Sound region of the west coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. The name was adopted in 1934 in reference to Esowista Indian Reserve No. 3. The name originally applied to the neck ...

and Esowista Indian Reserve No. 3. *''Yuquot (Friendly Cove)'' – Where they get the north winds, Yuquot *''nootk-sitl (Nootka)'' – Go around. *''maaqtusiis'' – A place across the island, Marktosis *''kakawis'' – Fronted by a rock that looks like a container. *''kitsuksis'' – Log across mouth of creek *''opitsaht'' – Island that the moon lands on, Opitsaht *''pacheena'' – Foamy. *''tsu-ma-uss (somass)'' – Washing,

Somass River Somass River is a river on Vancouver Island, in the Canadian province of British Columbia. Its drainage basin is in size. The river's name comes from a Nuu-chah-nulth word meaning "washing". Course The Stamp River and Sproat River join to for ...

*''tsahaheh'' – To go up. *''hitac`u (itatsoo)'' – Ucluelet Reserve. *''t’iipis'' – Polly’s Point. *''Tsaxana'' – A place close to the river. *''Cheewat'' – Pulling tide.

Resources

A Ehattesaht iPhone app was released in January 2012. An online dictionary, phrasebook, and language learning portal is available at the

First Voices FirstVoices is a web-based project to support Indigenous peoples' teaching and archiving of language and culture. It is administered by the First Peoples' Cultural Council in British Columbia (B.C.). FirstVoices was initially launched in 2003 to a ...

Ehattesaht Nuchatlaht Community Portal.

Notes

References

* * Kim, Eun-Sook. (2003). Theoretical issues in Nuu-chah-nulth phonology and morphology. (Doctoral dissertation, The University of British Columbia, Department of Linguistics). * Nakayama, Toshihide (2001). ''Nuuchahnulth (Nootka) morphosyntax''. Berkeley: University of California Press. * Sapir, Edward. (1938). Glottalized continuants in Navaho, Nootka, and Kwakiutl (with a note on Indo-European). ''Language'', ''14'', 248–274. * Sapir, Edward; & Swadesh, Morris. (1939). ''Nootka texts: Tales and ethnological narratives with grammatical notes and lexical materials''. Philadelphia: Linguistic Society of America. *Adam Werle. (2015). ''Nuuchahnulth grammar reference for LC language notes.'' University of Victoria * Sapir, Edward; & Swadesh, Morris. (1955). ''Native accounts of Nootka ethnography''. Publication of the Indiana University Research Center in Anthropology, Folklore, and Linguistics (No. 1); International journal of American linguistics (Vol. 21, No. 4, Pt. 2). Bloomington: Indiana University, Research Center in Anthropology, Folklore, and Linguistics. (Reprinted 1978 in New York: AMS Press, ISBN). * Shank, Scott; & Wilson, Ian. (2000). Acoustic evidence for as a glottalized pharyngeal glide in Nuu-chah-nulth. In S. Gessner & S. Oh (Eds.), ''Proceedings of the 35th International Conference on Salish and Neighboring Languages'' (pp. 185–197). UBC working papers is linguistics (Vol. 3).

External links

An extract from the forthcoming Nuuchahnulth Dictionary

(YDLI)

(Chris Harvey’s Native Language, Font, & Keyboard) *

The Wakashan Linguistics Page
*
Grammatical Possession in Nuu-Chah-Nulth
*
Deriving the definiteness effects in Nuu-chah-nulth locatives1
*
Condition C in Nuu-chah-nulth*

at native-languages.org
Nuu-chah-nulth
(

Intercontinental Dictionary Series The Intercontinental Dictionary Series (commonly abbreviated as IDS) is a large database of topical vocabulary lists in various world languages. The general editor of the database is Bernard Comrie of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary A ...

) {{DEFAULTSORT:Nuu-Chah-Nulth Language + Wakashan languages Indigenous languages of the Pacific Northwest Coast First Nations languages in Canada Endangered Wakashan languages