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The Salish or Séliš language , also known as Kalispel–Pend d'oreille, Kalispel–Spokane–Flathead, or Montana Salish to distinguish it from other
Salishan languages
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 a ...
, is a Salishan language spoken (as of 2005) by about 64 elders of the
Flathead Nation
Flathead may refer to:
Peoples
* Flathead people, one of three tribes of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Nation in Montana.
* The Flathead, or Flathead Indian (or Amerindian) tribe more formally known as the Confe ...
in north central
Montana
Montana () is a state in the Mountain West division of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota and South Dakota to the east, Wyoming to the south, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columb ...
and of the
Kalispel Indian Reservation in northeastern
Washington state
Washington (), officially the State of Washington, is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. Named for George Washington—the first U.S. president—the state was formed from the western part of the Washington ...
, and by another 50 elders (as of 2000) of the
Spokane Indian Reservation
The Spokan or Spokane people are a Native American Plateau tribe who inhabit the eastern portion of present-day Washington state and parts of northern Idaho in the United States of America.
The current Spokane Indian Reservation is located in ...
of Washington. As of 2012, Salish is "critically endangered" in Montana and Idaho according to UNESCO.
Dialects are spoken by the
Spokane
Spokane ( ) is the largest city and county seat of Spokane County, Washington, United States. It is in eastern Washington, along the Spokane River, adjacent to the Selkirk Mountains, and west of the Rocky Mountain foothills, south of the Ca ...
(Npoqínišcn),
Kalispel
The Pend d'Oreille ( ), also known as the Kalispel (), are Indigenous peoples of the Northwest Plateau. Today many of them live in Montana and eastern Washington of the United States. The Kalispel peoples referred to their primary tribal range a ...
(Qalispé),
Pend d'Oreilles
The Pend d'Oreille ( ), also known as the Kalispel (), are Indigenous peoples of the Northwest Plateau. Today many of them live in Montana and eastern Washington of the United States. The Kalispel peoples referred to their primary tribal range a ...
, and
Bitterroot Salish
The Bitterroot Salish (or Flathead, Salish, Selish) are a Salish-speaking group of Native Americans, and one of three tribes of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Nation in Montana. The Flathead Reservation is home to ...
(Séliš). The total ethnic population was 8,000 in 1977, but most have switched to English.
As is the case of many other languages of northern North America, Salish is
polysynthetic
In linguistic typology, polysynthetic languages, formerly holophrastic languages, are highly synthetic languages, i.e. languages in which words are composed of many morphemes (word parts that have independent meaning but may or may not be able t ...
; like other languages of the
Mosan language area
A sprachbund (, lit. "language federation"), also known as a linguistic area, area of linguistic convergence, or diffusion area, is a group of languages that share areal features resulting from geographical proximity and language contact. The lang ...
, it does make a clear distinguish between nouns and verbs. Salish is famous for native translations that treat all lexical Salish words as verbs or clauses in English—for instance, translating a two-word Salish clause that would appear to mean "I-killed a-deer" into English as ''I killed it. It was a deer.''
Language revitalization
Salish is taught at the Nkwusm Salish Immersion School, in
Arlee, Montana
Arlee ( Salish: nɫq̓alqʷ, nɫq̓a ) is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Lake County, Montana, United States. The population was 636 at the 2010 census. It is named after Alee, a Salish chief. The chief's name ...
. Public schools in
Kalispell, Montana
Kalispell (, Montana Salish: Ql̓ispé, Kutenai language: kqayaqawakⱡuʔnam) is a city in, and the county seat of, Flathead County, Montana, United States. The 2020 census put Kalispell's population at 24,558. In Montana's northwest region ...
offer language classes, a
language nest
A language nest is an immersion-based approach to language revitalization in early-childhood education. Language nests originated in New Zealand in the 1980s, as a part of the Māori-language revival in that country. The term "language nest" is ...
, and intensive training for adults. An online Salish Language Tutor and online Kalispel Salish curriculum are available. A dictionary, "Seliš nyoʔnuntn: Medicine for the Salish Language," was expanded from 186 to 816 pages in 2009; children's books and language CDs are also available.
Salish Kootenai College
Salish Kootenai College (SKC) is a private tribal land-grant community college in Pablo, Montana. It serves the Bitterroot Salish, Kootenai, and Pend d'Oreilles tribes. SKC's main campus is on the Flathead Reservation. There are three satellite ...
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. As of May 2013, the organization ''Yoyoot Skʷkʷimlt'' ("Strong Young People") is teaching language classes in high schools.
Salish-language
Christmas carols
Christmas is an annual festival commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people around the world. A feast central to the Christian liturgical year, ...
are popular for children's holiday programs, which have been broadcast over the Salish Kootenai College television station, and Salish-language
karaoke
Karaoke (; ; , clipped compound of Japanese ''kara'' "empty" and ''ōkesutora'' "orchestra") is a type of interactive entertainment usually offered in clubs and bars, where people sing along to recorded music using a microphone. The music i ...
has become popular at the annual Celebrating Salish Conference, held in
Spokane, Washington
Spokane ( ) is the largest city and county seat of Spokane County, Washington, United States. It is in eastern Washington, along the Spokane River, adjacent to the Selkirk Mountains, and west of the Rocky Mountain foothills, south of the Cana ...
.
As of 2013, many signs on
U.S. Route 93 in the
Flathead Indian Reservation
The Flathead Indian Reservation, located in western Montana on the Flathead River, is home to the Bitterroot Salish, Kootenai, and Pend d'Oreilles tribes – also known as the
Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Nation. The ...
include the historic Salish and
Kutenai
The Kutenai ( ), also known as the Ktunaxa ( ; ), Ksanka ( ), Kootenay (in Canada) and Kootenai (in the United States), are an indigenous people of Canada and the United States. Kutenai bands live in southeastern British Columbia, northern ...
names for towns, rivers, and streams. The
Missoula City Council
Missoula ( ; fla, label= Séliš, Nłʔay, lit=Place of the Small Bull Trout, script=Latn; kut, Tuhuⱡnana, script=Latn) is a city in the U.S. state of Montana; it is the county seat of Missoula County. It is located along the Clark Fork R ...
is seeking input from the
Salish-Pend d'Oreille Culture Committee regarding appropriate Salish-language signage for the City of Missoula.
Phonology
Salish
Vowels
Salish has five vowels, , plus an
epenthetic
In phonology, epenthesis (; Greek ) means the addition of one or more sounds to a word, especially in the beginning syllable ('' prothesis'') or in the ending syllable (''paragoge'') or in-between two syllabic sounds in a word. The word ''epent ...
schwa which occurs between an
obstruent and a
sonorant consonant
In phonetics and phonology, a sonorant or resonant is a speech sound that is produced with continuous, non-turbulent airflow in the vocal tract; these are the manners of articulation that are most often voiced in the world's languages. Vowels are ...
, or between two unlike sonorants. (Differences in glottalization do not cause epenthesis, and in long sequences not all pairs are separated, for example in → "tale", → "red raspberry", and → "toilet". No word may begin with a vowel.
Consonants
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
A lateral is a consonant in which the airstream proceeds along one or both of the sides of the tongue, but it is blocked by the tongue from going through the middle of the mouth. An example of a lateral consonant is the English ''L'', as in ''Larr ...
and simple
velar consonant
Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth (known also as the velum).
Since the velar region of the roof of the mouth is relatively extensive an ...
s ( only occurs in
loanword
A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because t ...
s), though again this is known elsewhere in the Mosan area.
The post-velars are normally transcribed as
uvular consonant
Uvulars are consonants articulated with the back of the tongue against or near the uvula, that is, further back in the mouth than velar consonants. Uvulars may be stops, fricatives, nasals, trills, or approximants, though the IPA does not p ...
s: .
Salish contrasts
affricates with
stop
Stop may refer to:
Places
* Stop, Kentucky, an unincorporated community in the United States
* Stop (Rogatica), a village in Rogatica, Republika Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Facilities
* Bus stop
* Truck stop, a type of rest stop for truck d ...
–
fricative
A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in t ...
sequences. For example, "tender, sore" has a sequence of two affricates, whereas "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
In phonology, epenthesis (; Greek ) means the addition of one or more sounds to a word, especially in the beginning syllable ('' prothesis'') or in the ending syllable (''paragoge'') or in-between two syllabic sounds in a word. The word ''epent ...
schwas before sonorants. For example, the word "a fat little belly" is pronounced ; likewise, "woodtick" is pronounced , and is .
Spokane
Vowels
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.
Consonants
The consonant inventory of Spokane differs from Salish somewhat, including plain and glottalized central alveolar approximants and , and a uvular series instead of post-velar.
Stress
Spokane words are
polysynthetic
In linguistic typology, polysynthetic languages, formerly holophrastic languages, are highly synthetic languages, i.e. languages in which words are composed of many morphemes (word parts that have independent meaning but may or may not be able t ...
, 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).
Morphology
OC:out-of-control morpheme reduplication
SUCCESS:success aspect morpheme
Given its
polysynthetic
In linguistic typology, polysynthetic languages, formerly holophrastic languages, are highly synthetic languages, i.e. languages in which words are composed of many morphemes (word parts that have independent meaning but may or may not be able t ...
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.
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:
References
* "Phonetic Structures of Montana Salish". Flemming, Ladefoged, & Thomason, 1994. In ''UCLA Working Papers in Phonetics 87: Fieldwork Studies of Targeted Languages II''
* Carlson, Barry. "Situation aspect and a Spokane control morpheme." International Journal of American Linguistics (1996): 59-69.
Further reading
* Giorda, Joseph, and
Gregory Mengarini.
A Dictionary of the Kalispel or Flat-Head Indian Language'.
t. Ignatius
T is the twentieth letter of the Latin alphabet. (For the same letterform in the Cyrillic and Greek alphabets, see Te and Tau respectively).
T may also refer to:
Codes and units
* T, Tera- as in one trillion
* T, the symbol for "True" in lo ...
St. Ignatius Print, Montana, 1877.
Information on how its transcription does not fully indicate pronunciation.
* 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
Nkwusm Salish Language Revitalization InstituteSeliš u Qlispé Nuwewlštn, The Salish & Pend d'Oreille Comprehensive, Sequenced Language CurriculumSalish language, Kalispel Tribe website written and audio online course
*
Seliš Nuwewlštn, A Beginning Course in Salish & Pend d'Oreille Dialect Salish Institute
Flashcards, Snʔawʔawtn 2: Level 2, Book 2Language of the Kalispel, Gonzaga UniversitySpokane Salish Blog*
from Nkwusm
*
OLAC resources in and about the Kalispel-Pend d'Oreille language
Vocabulary and dictionaries
, Salish/Pend d'Oreille Culture Committee
Sounds of the Kalispel English-Kalispel
1800s
English to Salish Dictionary 2005
*
Salish language flashcard decks
Audio
Salish-Pend d'Oreille Culture Committee
UCLA Phonetics Lab Archive
Flathead-Kalispel language- Audio Bible stories and lessons
Video
Salish LanguageSalish Kootenai College
Nkwusm Salish Language SchoolYouTube channel
Salish stories from Seliš Nuwewlštn, A Beginning Course in Salish & Pend d'Oreille Dialect
{{DEFAULTSORT:Montana Salish Language
Interior Salish languages
Indigenous languages of Montana
Native American language revitalization
Endangered indigenous languages of the Americas