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The Twana (təw'ánəxʷ) language, also known as Skokomish from one of the tribes that spoke it, belongs to the
Salishan The Salishan (also Salish) languages are a family of languages of the Pacific Northwest in North America (the Canadian province of British Columbia and the American states of Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana). They are characterised by ...
family of
Native American languages Over a thousand indigenous languages are spoken by the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. These languages cannot all be demonstrated to be related to each other and are classified into a hundred or so language families (including a large numbe ...
. It is believed by some elders within the Skokomish community (such as Bruce Subiyay Miller) that the language branched off from
Lushootseed Lushootseed (txʷəlšucid, dxʷləšúcid), also Puget Salish, Puget Sound Salish or Skagit-Nisqually, is a language made up of a dialect continuum of several Salish tribes of modern-day Washington state. Lushootseed is one of the Coast Salis ...
(dxwəlšucid) because of the region-wide tradition of not speaking the name of someone who died for a year after their death. Substitute words were found in their place and often became normalizing in the community, generating differences from one community to the next. Subiyay speculated that this process increased the drift rate between languages and separated Twana firmly from xwəlšucid (
Lushootseed Lushootseed (txʷəlšucid, dxʷləšúcid), also Puget Salish, Puget Sound Salish or Skagit-Nisqually, is a language made up of a dialect continuum of several Salish tribes of modern-day Washington state. Lushootseed is one of the Coast Salis ...
). The last fluent speaker died in 1980. The name "Skokomish" comes from the Twana ', also spelled ', and meaning "river people" or "people of the river".The Skokomish Tribal Nation
/ref> ' directly translated mean 'Twana Language' as where English would be ' which means 'English language'.


Phonology

Vowel sounds present are .


See also

*
Lushootseed Lushootseed (txʷəlšucid, dxʷləšúcid), also Puget Salish, Puget Sound Salish or Skagit-Nisqually, is a language made up of a dialect continuum of several Salish tribes of modern-day Washington state. Lushootseed is one of the Coast Salis ...


References


External links


OLAC resources in and about the Twana language
Languages of the United States Coast Salish languages Indigenous languages of the Pacific Northwest Coast Indigenous languages of Washington (state) {{Washington-stub