The Tsimshianic languages are a

family Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Idea ...

of languages spoken in northwestern

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 ...

and in Southeast

Alaska Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U ...

Annette Island Annette Island or ''Taak'w Aan'' (Tlingit) is an island in the Gravina Islands of the Alexander Archipelago of the Pacific Ocean on the southeastern coast of the U.S. state of Alaska. It is at . It is about long and about wide. The land area ...

and

Ketchikan Ketchikan ( ; tli, Kichx̱áan) is a city in and the borough seat of the Ketchikan Gateway Borough of Alaska. It is the state's southeasternmost major settlement. Downtown Ketchikan is a National Historic District. With a population at the 20 ...

. All Tsimshianic languages are endangered, some with only around 400 speakers. Only around 2,170 people of the ethnic Tsimshian population in Canada still speak a Tsimshian language; about 50 of the 1,300 Tsimshian people living in Alaska still speak

Coast Tsimshian Tsimshian, known by its speakers as Sm'álgyax, is a dialect of the Tsimshian language spoken in northwestern British Columbia and southeastern Alaska. ''Sm'algyax'' means literally "real or true language." The linguist Tonya Stebbins estima ...

Alaska Native Language Center The Alaska Native Language Center, established in 1972 in Fairbanks, Alaska, is a research center focusing on the research and documentation of the Native languages of Alaska. It publishes grammars, dictionaries, folklore collections and research m ...

. (2001-12-07)
"Tsimshian."

University of Alaska Fairbanks The University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF or Alaska) is a public land-grant research university in College, Alaska, a suburb of Fairbanks. It is the flagship campus of the University of Alaska system. UAF was established in 1917 and opened for c ...

. Retrieved on 2007-04-11.Gordon, Raymond G., Jr. (ed.). (2005)
"Tsimshian."''Ethnologue: Languages of the World'', 15th ed. (online version).
Dallas, TX: SIL International Retrieved on 2007-04-11. Tsimshianic languages are considered by most linguists to be an independent language family, with four main languages: Coast Tsimshian, Southern Tsimshian, Nisg̱a’a, and Gitksan.Alaska Native Heritage Center. (2000)
"Eyak, Haida, Tlingit & Tsimshian."
Retrieved on 2007-04-11. The Tsimshianic languages were included by

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 ...

in his

Penutian Penutian is a proposed grouping of language families that includes many Native American languages of western North America, predominantly spoken at one time in British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, and California. The existence of a Penutian s ...

hypothesis, which is currently not widely accepted, at least in its full form. The Penutian connections of Tsimshianic have been reevaluated by

Marie-Lucie Tarpent Marie-Lucie Tarpent (born November 9, 1941) is a French-born Canadian linguist, formerly an associate professor of linguistics and French at Mount Saint Vincent University SVU Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. She is known for her descriptive work on ...

, who finds the idea probable, though others hold that the Tsimshianic family is not closely related to any other North American language.

Family division

Tsimshianic consists of 4

lect In sociolinguistics, a variety, also called an isolect or lect, is a specific form of a language or language cluster. This may include languages, dialects, registers, styles, or other forms of language, as well as a standard variety.Meecham ...

s: # Tsimshian (also known as Maritime Tsimshianic, Lower Tsimshian, Northern Tsimshian) #*

(also known as Tsimshian proper, Sm’algyax̣, Sm’algax) #*

Southern Tsimshian Southern Tsimshian, (pronounced: ) or , is the southern dialect of the Tsimshian language, spoken by the Gitga'ata and Kitasoo Tsimshians in Klemtu, B.C. It became extinct with the death of the last remaining speaker, Violet Neasloss. is clo ...

(also known as Sgüüx̣s, Ski:xs, Old Klemtu) † # Nass–Gitksan (also known as Interior Tsimshianic, Inland Tsimshianic) #* Nisga’a (also known as Nisqa’a, Nisg̱a’a, Nishga, Nisgha, Niska, Nass, Nishka) #*

Gitksan Gitxsan (also spelled Gitksan) are an Indigenous people in Canada whose home territory comprises most of the area known as the Skeena Country in English (: means "people of" and : means "the River of Mist"). Gitksan territory encompasses approxim ...

(also known as Gitxsan, Gitksanimx̣) Coast Tsimshian is spoken along the lower

Skeena River The Skeena River is the second-longest river entirely within British Columbia, Canada (after the Fraser River). Since ancient times, the Skeena has been an important transportation artery, particularly for the Tsimshian and the Gitxsan—whose n ...

in Northwestern

, on some neighbouring islands, and to the north at New Metlakatla, Alaska. Southern Tsimshian was spoken on an island quite far south of the Skeena River in the village of

Klemtu Klemtu is an unincorporated community on Swindle Island in the coastal fjords of British Columbia, Canada. It is located on Kitasoo Indian Reserve No. 1. Klemtu is the home of the Kitasoo tribe of Tsimshians, originally from Kitasu Bay, and t ...

, however it became extinct in 2013. Nisga’a is spoken along the

Nass River The Nass River is a river in northern British Columbia, Canada. It flows from the Coast Mountains southwest to Nass Bay, a sidewater of Portland Inlet, which connects to the North Pacific Ocean via the Dixon Entrance. Nass Bay joins Portland In ...

. Gitksan is spoken along the Upper Skeena River around Hazelton and other areas. Nisga’a and Gitksan are very closely related and are usually considered

dialect The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of linguistic phenomena: One usage refers to a variety of a language that is ...

s of the same language by linguists. However, speakers from both groups consider themselves ethnically separate from each other and from the Tsimshian and thus consider Nisga’a and Gitksan to be separate languages. Coast and Southern Tsimshian are also often regarded as dialects of the same language. As of 2013, Tsimshian courses are available at the

University of Alaska Southeast The University of Alaska Southeast (UA Southeast, Alaska Southeast, or UAS) is a public university with its main campus in Juneau, Alaska and extended campuses in Sitka and Ketchikan. It is part of the University of Alaska System and was estab ...

Phonology

Consonantal inventory of Proto-Tsimshian:Tarpent, 1997, p. 70

Footnotes

Bibliography

* Boas, Franz. (1902).
Tsimshian Texts
'' Washington: Bureau of American Ethnology. Bulletin 27. * Boas, Franz. (1911). "Tsimshian." ''Handbook of American Indian Languages'' Bulletin No. 40, part I, pp. 287–422. * Mithun, Marianne. (1999). ''The Languages of Native North America''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (hbk). * Tarpent, Marie-Lucie. (1997). "Tsimshianic and Penutian: Problems, Methods, Results, and Implications." ''International Journal of American Linguistics'' 63.52-244.

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 ...

) {{North American languages Language families Penutian languages Indigenous languages of the Pacific Northwest Coast Indigenous languages of Alaska Languages of the United States

Family division

Phonology

See also

Footnotes

Bibliography

External links