Lillooet
St̓át̓imcets,Sƛ̓aƛ̓imxǝc Ucwalmícwts,Lil̓wat7úlmec
Pronunciation	[ˈʃt͡ɬʼæt͡ɬʼjəmxət͡ʃ]
Native to	Canada
Region	British Columbia
Ethnicity	6,670St̓át̓imc (2014,FPCC)[1]
Native speakers	120
Language family	Salishan Interior Salish Northern Lillooet
Language codes
ISO 639-3	lil
Glottolog	lill1248
ELP	St̓át̓imcets (Lillooet)
Lillooet is classified as Severely Endangered by theUNESCOAtlas of the World's Languages in Danger.
This article containsIPA phonetic symbols. Without properrendering support, you may seequestion marks, boxes, or other symbols instead ofUnicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, seeHelp:IPA.

Lillooet (/ˈlɪloʊɛt/; Lillooet:St̓át̓imcets /Sƛ̓aƛ̓imxǝc,[ˈʃt͡ɬʼæt͡ɬʼjəmxət͡ʃ]), alsoLil’wat, is aSalishan language of theInterior branch spoken by theStʼatʼimc in southernBritish Columbia, Canada, around the middleFraser andLillooet Rivers. The language of theLower Lillooet people uses the nameUcwalmícwts,^[2] becauseSt̓át̓imcets means "the language of the people ofSat̓", i.e. the Upper Lillooet of the Fraser River.

Lillooet is a criticallyendangered language with around 120 fluent speakers and 393 semi-speakers. In 2022, there was a reported 1092 people learning the language.^[3]

Lillooet has two main dialects:

• Upper/Northern Lillooet (a.k.a.St̓át̓imcets, Fountain)
• Lower/Southern Lillooet (a.k.a.Lil̓wat7úlmec, Mount Currie)

Upper Lillooet is spoken aroundFountain,Pavilion,Lillooet, and neighboring areas. Lower Lillooet is spoken aroundMount Currie and neighboring areas. An additional subdialect called "Skookumchuck" is spoken within the Lower Lilooet dialect area, but there is no information available in van Eijk (1981, 1997). A common self-designation used by the bands of the Lower Lillooet River below Lillooet Lake isUcwalmicwts.

TheClao7alcw ("Raven's Nest") language nest program atMount Currie, home of the Lil’wat, is conducted in the Lillooet language and was the focus ofOnowa McIvor's Master's thesis.^[4]

As of 2014, "the Coastal Corridor Consortium—an entity made up of board members from First Nations and educational partners to improve aboriginal access to and performance in postsecondary education and training— ... [has] developed a Lil’wat-language program."^[5]

Like other languages of the American Northwest language area, including all Salishan languages, Lillooet has a largeconsonant inventory with extensive phonemic glottalization. 44 consonants are distinguished at sixplaces of articulation. Every non-fricative consonant can be glottalized; only the glottalized lateral affricate/t͡ɬʼ/ lacks a plain counterpart, although the glottalized counterpart of/t/ has a sibilant release/t͡sʼ/, and the uvular glottalized consonants are affricated. Lillooet's consonant inventory is unusual in lacking a hissingsibilant fricative/s/, hence⟨s⟩ is used to represent/ʃ/ in the practical orthography.

• Glottalized stops are pronounced asejective consonants. Glottalized sonorants are pronounced withcreaky voice./nˀ/ =/nʼ/ =[n̰] are all essentially equivalent notation which are often used interchangeably in descriptions of Lillooet.
• The glottalized consonants of Lillooet contrast not only with plain consonants, but also with sequences of consonants and glottal stops. For example,/tisqlawˀa/ "the beaver, the money" (with/wˀ/) contrasts with/tiqʷlawʔa/ "the onion" (with/wʔ/).
• The dental approximants/z,zˀ/ are pronounced alternatively as interdental fricatives[ð,ðˀ] or as dental fricatives[z̪,z̪ˀ], depending on the dialect.
• There are four pairs ofretracted and nonretracted consonants (which alternate morphophonemically). Retraction on consonants is essentiallyvelarization, although additionally, nonretracted/t͡ʃ/ is phoneticallylaminal[t͡ʃ̻] whereas retracted/t͡ʃ̠/ isapical[t͡ʂ̺].
  • /t͡ʃ/–/t͡ʃ̠/
  • /ʃ/–/ʃ̠/
  • /l/–/ḻ/
  • /lˀ/–/ḻˀ/
• Among the post-velar consonants, the obstruents/q,qʷ,q͡χʼ,q͡χʷʼ,χ,χʷ/ are all post-velar (pre-uvular)[k̠,k̠ʷ,k̠͡x̠ʼ,k̠͡x̠ʷʼ,x̠,x̠ʷ] whereas the approximants[ʕ,ʕʷ,ʕˀ,ʕʷˀ] are eitherpharyngeal or true uvulars.

Lillooet has 8vowels:

• The phonetic realization of the phonemes are indicated in brackets to the right, though many allophones exist; for example, the realization of/e/ ranges from[e~i], that of/o/ from[o~u], and that non-retracted vowel/a/ from[ɛ~æ]. Vowels in stressed syllables tend to have less central pronunciations compared to their unstressed counterparts. For example,guy̓guy̓túlh 'always sleeping' is underlyingly/ʕojˀʕojˀˈtoɬ/ but is realized as[ʕojˀʕojˀtuɬ], with the stressed /o/ being decentralized.
• Allretracted vowels are indicated by a line under the vowel. These retracted vowels alternate morphophonemically.
• Since retracted/e̠/ and non-retracted/a/ can both be pronounced[ɛ], there is often phonetic overlap.

• Some sequences give rise to anepenthetic/ə/.

Post-velar Harmony (retraction):

• Withinroots, all consonant and vowel retracted-nonretracted pairs must be of the same type. That is, a root may not contain both a retracted and a nonretracted vowel or consonant. This is a type ofretracted tongue rootharmony (also called "pharyngeal harmony") involving both vowels and consonants, anareal feature of this region of North America shared by other Interior Salishan and non-Salishan languages (for example seeChilcotin vowel flattening).
• In addition to the root harmony restriction, some suffixes harmonize with the root to which they are attached. For instance, theinchoative suffix/-wéˀlx/-wil’c:

ama "good"	/ʔáma/	+/-wélˀx/	→	/ʔamawélˀx/[ʔɛmɛwélˀx]	amawíl’c "to get better"
qvl "bad"	/qʌḻ/	+/-wélˀx/	→	/qʌḻwé̠ḻˀx/[qaɫwɛ́ɫˀx]	qvḻwíiḻʼc "to get spoiled"

There are two practical orthographies, one developed by Randall Bouchard and another developed by Jan van Eijk^[6]. Several works also use transcriptions based onAmericanist Phonetic Notation. The Bouchard practical orthography was used by the Upper St̓át̓imc communities and the Upper St̓át̓imc Language, Culture and Education Society^[7] but they have since also adopted the van Eijk practical orthography that has been used by the Mount Currie School and the Lillooet Council. The van Eijk practical orthography is unusual in that/tɬʼ/ is written⟨t̓⟩, but it is preferred in many modern Lillooet-speaking communities.^[8]

Lillooet has two main types of words:

1. full words
   1. variable words
   2. invariable words
2. clitics
   1. proclitics
   2. enclitics

The variable word type may be affected by manymorphological processes, such asprefixation,suffixation,infixation,reduplication, andglottalization.

Lillooet, like the other Salishan languages, exhibits predicate/argument flexibility. All full words are able to occur in the predicate (including words with typically noun-like meanings such asnk̓yap 'coyote', which in the predicate essentially means 'to be a coyote') and any full word is able to appear in an argument, even those that seem verb-like, such ast̓ak 'go along', which as an independent argument is equivalent to 'one that goes along'.^[9]

Lillooet, as is typical of the Salishan family, has several types ofreduplication (and triplication) that have a range of functions such as expressing plural, diminutive, aspect, etc.

A more complicated type of reduplication is theinternal reduplication used to express the diminutive. In this case the consonant before a stressed vowel is reduplicated after the stressed vowel and usually the vowel then changes toe (IPA:[ə]). Examples are below:

More than one reduplicative process can occur in a given word:

Lillooet has several other variants of the above types. Reduplication is further complicated by consonant glottalization (see van Eijk (1997) for details).

Thesubjunctive mood appears in nine distinct environments, with a range of semantic effects, including:

• weakening an imperative to a polite request,
• turning a question into an uncertainty statement,
• creating an ignorance free relative.

Unlike Indo-European equivalents, the Lillooet subjunctive is not selected by attitude verbs.

Lillooet has a complex system of subject and object agreement. There are different subject agreement paradigms for transitive vs. intransitive predicates. For intransitive predicates, there are three distinct subject paradigms, one of which is glossed as 'subjunctive' by van Eijk (1997) and Davis (2006)

The following is a portion of a story in van Eijk (1981:87) told by Rosie Joseph of Mount Currie.

Lillooet:

Nilh aylh lts7a sMáma ti húz̓a qweqwl̓el̓tmínan. N̓as ku7 ámlec áku7 tsípunsa. Nilh t̓u7 st̓áksas ti xláka7sa. Tsicw áku7, nilh t̓u7 ses wa7, kwánas et7ú i sqáwtsa. Wa7 ku7 t̓u7 áti7 xílem, t̓ak ku7 knáti7 ti pú7y̓acwa. Nilh ku7 t̓u7 skwánas, lip̓in̓ás ku7. Nilh ku7 t̓u7 aylh stsuts: "Wa7 nalh aylh láti7 kapv́ta!" Nilh ku7 t̓u7 aylh sklhaka7mínas ku7 láti7 ti sqáwtsa cwilhá k̓a, nao7q̓ spawts ti kwanensása...

International Phonetic Alphabet:

/neɬɛjɬlt͡ʃʔɛˈʃmɛmɛteˈhozˀɛqʷəqʷlˀəlˀtˈmenɛn.nˀɛʃkoʔˈɛmləxˈɛkoʔˈt͡ʃeponʃɛ.neɬt͡ɬʼoʔˈʃt͡ɬʼɛkʃɛʃteˈχlɛkɛʔʃɛ.t͡ʃexʷˈɛkoʔneɬt͡ɬʼoʔʃəʃɣʷɛʔˈkʷɛnɛʃətˈʔoeˈʃqɛwt͡ʃɛ.wɛʔkoʔt͡ɬʼoʔˈɛteʔˈχeləmt͡ɬʼɛkkoʔˈknɛteʔteˈpoʔjˀɛxʷɛ.neɬkoʔt͡ɬʼoʔˈʃkʷɛnɛʃlepʼenˀˈɛʃkoʔ.neɬkoʔt͡ɬʼoʔɛjɬʃt͡ʃot͡ʃwɛʔnɛɬɛjɬˈlɛteʔkɛˈpʌtɛneɬkoʔt͡ɬʼoʔɛjɬʃkɬɛkɛʔˈmenɛʃkoʔˈlɛteʔteˈʃqɛwt͡ʃɛxʷeɬˈɛkʼɛnaʔqχʼʃpɛwt͡ʃtekʷɛnənˈʃɛʃɛ/

English translation:

This time it is Máma I am going to talk about. She went that way to get some food from her roothouse. So she took along her bucket. She got there, and she stayed around, taking potatoes. She was doing that, and then a mouse ran by there. So she grabbed it, she squeezed it. So she said: "You get all squashed now!" So she opened her hand and she let go of what turned out to be a potato, it was a rotten potato that she had caught...

• Northern St̓át̓imcets language, at First Voices
• map of Northwest Coast First Nations (including St'at'imc)
• Bibliography of Materials on the Lillooet Language (YDLI)
• The Lillooet Language (YDLI)
• The St’at’imcets Language (Native Language, Font, & Keyboard)
• USLCES webpages (USLCES webpages)
• OLAC resources in and about the Lillooet language

• St'at'imc
• Interior Salish languages
• Indigenous languages of the North American Plateau
• First Nations languages in Canada

• Language articles citing Ethnologue 19
• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Use mdy dates from October 2023
• Articles containing Lillooet-language text
• Pages with Lillooet IPA
• Language articles with speaker number undated
• Language articles without reference field
• Pages with Salishan languages IPA
• Pages with plain IPA