Siuslaw was the language of the

Siuslaw people The Siuslaw are an Indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest. Their autonym is sha’yuushtl’a. Today Siuslaw people are enrolled with the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians and the Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw Indi ...

and Lower Umpqua ( Kuitsh) people of Oregon. It is also known as ''Lower Umpqua''. The Siuslaw language had two dialects: Siuslaw proper (Šaayušƛa) and Lower Umpqua (Quuiič).

Classification

Siuslaw is currently considered to be a

language isolate A language isolate is a language that has no demonstrable genetic relationship with any other languages. Basque in Europe, Ainu and Burushaski in Asia, Sandawe in Africa, Haida and Zuni in North America, Kanoê in South America, and Tiwi ...

. It may be part of a Coast Oregon Penutian family together with Alsea and the

Coosan languages Coosan () is a townland and suburb north of Athlone, County Westmeath in Ireland. Coosan, which is situated on the shores of Lough Ree, is surrounded by water on three sides and bordered by Athlone on the fourth. Coosan attracts tourists over t ...

, although the validity of this family is still controversial. Proponents of the disputed

Penutian Penutian is a proposed grouping of language family, language families that includes many Native Americans in the United States, Native American languages of western North America, predominantly spoken at one time in British Columbia, Washington ( ...

phylum usually include Siuslaw as part of it, together with the other Coast Oregon Penutian languages.

Documentation

Published sources are by Leo J. Frachtenberg who collected data from a non-English-speaking native speaker of the Lower Umpqua dialect and her Alsean husband (who spoke it as a second language) during three months of fieldwork in 1911, and by Dell Hymes who worked with four Siuslaw speakers in 1954.Hymes, Dell. (1966)
Some points of Siuslaw phonology.
''International Journal of American Linguistics'', ''32'', 328-342. Further archived documentation consists of a 12-page vocabulary by James Owen Dorsey, a wordlist of approximately 150 words taken by Melville Jacobs in 1935 in work with Lower Umpqua speaker Hank Johnson, an audio recording of Siuslaw speaker Spencer Scott from 1941, hundreds of pages of notes from John Peabody Harrington in 1942 based on interviews with several native speakers,Harrington, John P. 1942. "Alsea, SIuslaw, Coos, Southwest Oregon Athapaskan: Vocabularies, Linguistic Notes, Ethnographic and Historical Notes." John Peabody Harrington Papers, Alaska/Northwest Coast. National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. and audio recordings of vocabulary by Morris Swadesh in 1953.

Phonology

Consonants

Cluster of stops/affricates + glottal stop are realized as

ejective consonant In phonetics, ejective consonants are usually voiceless consonants that are pronounced with a Airstream mechanism#Glottalic initiation, glottalic egressive airstream. In the phonology of a particular language, ejectives may contrast with Aspirat ...

s: , , , ,

Vowels

Vowels are noted as /i æ a u ə o/.

Notes

References

External links

Languages of Oregon – Siuslaw
{{DEFAULTSORT:Siuslaw language Coast Oregon Penutian languages Language isolates of North America Indigenous languages of the Pacific Northwest Coast Penutian languages Indigenous languages of Oregon Extinct languages of North America Languages extinct in the 1970s 1970s disestablishments in Oregon