| Salish | |
|---|---|
| Séliš (Flathead) Npoqínišcn (Spokane) | |
 Salish Language Revitalization Institute school bus inMissoula, 2011 | |
| Native to | United States |
| Region | Northwest region |
| Ethnicity | 8,000Pend d'Oreilles (Kalispel),Flathead,Spokane peoples (1977–1997)[1] |
Native speakers | 70[2] (2009–2013)[1] |
Salishan
| |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | Either:fla – Flatheadspo – Spokane |
| Glottolog | kali1307 |
| ELP | Kalispel-Spokane-Pend d'Oreille-Salish |
 Kalispel is classified as Critically 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. | |
TheSalish orSéliš language (/ˈseɪlɪʃ/SAY-lish), also known asKalispel–Pend d'oreille,Kalispel–Spokane–Flathead, orMontana Salish to distinguish it from otherSalishan languages, is a Salishan language spoken (as of 2005) by about 64 elders of theFlathead Nation in north centralMontana and of theKalispel Indian Reservation in northeasternWashington state, and by another 50 elders (as of 2000) of theSpokane Indian Reservation of Washington. As of 2012, Salish is "critically endangered" in Montana and Idaho according to UNESCO.[3]
Dialects are spoken by theSpokane (Npoqínišcn),Kalispel (Qalispé),Pend d'Oreilles, andBitterroot Salish (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 ispolysynthetic; like other languages of theMosanlanguage area, it does not make a clear distinction between nouns and verbs. Salish is famous[according to whom?] 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 asI killed it. It was a deer.
Salish is taught at the Nkwusm Salish Immersion School, inArlee, Montana.[4][5][6][7] Public schools inKalispell, Montana, offer language classes, alanguage nest, and intensive training for adults.[8] An online Salish Language Tutor and online Kalispel Salish curriculum are available.[9][10] A dictionary,Seliš nyoʔnuntn: Medicine for the Salish Language, was expanded from 186 to 816 pages in 2009;[11] children's books and language CDs are also available.[12]
Salish Kootenai College 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.[13][14] As of May 2013, the organizationYoyoot Skʷkʷimlt ("Strong Young People") is teaching language classes in high schools.[15]
Salish-languageChristmas carols are popular for children's holiday programs, which have been broadcast over the Salish Kootenai College television station,[16] and Salish-languagekaraoke has become popular at the annual Celebrating Salish Conference, held inSpokane, Washington.[17][18]As of 2013, many signs onU.S. Route 93 in theFlathead Indian Reservation were including the historic Salish andKutenai names for towns, rivers, and streams, and theMissoula City Council was seeking input from theSalish-Pend d'Oreille Culture Committee regarding appropriate Salish-language signage for the city of Missoula.[19]
Salish has five vowels,/aeiou/, plus anepentheticschwa[ə] which occurs between anobstruent and asonorant consonant, or between two unlike sonorants. Differences in glottalization do not cause epenthesis, and in long sequences not all pairs are separated, for example in/sqllú/ →[sqəllú] "tale",/ʔlˀlát͡s/ →[ʔəlˀlát͡s] "red raspberry", and/sˀnmˀné/ →[səʔnəmˀné] "toilet". No word may begin with a vowel.
Salish haspharyngeal consonants, which are rare worldwide and uncommon but not unusual in theMosanSprachbund to which Salish belongs. It is also unusual in lacking a simplelateral approximant and simplevelar consonants (/k/ only occurs inloanwords), though again this is known elsewhere in the Mosan area.
The post-velars are normally transcribed asuvular consonants: ⟨q,qʼ,χ,qʷ,qʷʼ,χʷ⟩.
Salish contrastsaffricates withstop–fricative sequences. For example,[ʔiɬt͡ʃt͡ʃeˀn] "tender, sore" has a sequence of two affricates, whereas[stiʕít.ʃən] "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 andepentheticschwas before sonorants. For example, the word/t͡ʃɬkʷkʷtˀnéˀws/ "a fat little belly" is pronounced[t͡ʃɬkꭩkꭩtʰəʔnéʔʍs]; likewise,/t͡ʃt͡ʃt͡sʼéˀlʃt͡ʃn/ "woodtick" is pronounced[t͡ʃt͡ʃt͡sʼéʔt͡ɬʃᵗʃən], and/ppíˀl/ is[pʰpíḭᵗɬə̥].
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.[20]
The consonant inventory of Spokane differs from Salish somewhat, including plain and glottalized central alveolar approximants/ɹ/ and/ˀɹ/, and a uvular series instead of post-velar.[20]
| Labial | Alveolar | Post- alveolar | Labio- velar | Uvular | Pharyngeal | Glottal | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| plain | sibilant | lateral | plain | labial | plain | labial | ||||||
| Plosive | plain | p | t | ts | tʃ | kʷ | q | qʷ | ʔ | |||
| ejective | pʼ | tʼ | tsʼ | tɬʼ | tʃʼ | kʷʼ | qʼ | qʷʼ | ||||
| Fricative | s | ɬ | ʃ | xʷ | χ | χʷ | h | |||||
| Sonorant | plain | m | n | j | w | ʕ | ʕʷ | |||||
| glottalized | ˀm | ˀn | ˀl | ˀj | ˀw | ˀʕ | ˀʕʷ | |||||
| Rhotic | plain | ɹ | ||||||||||
| glottal. | ˀɹ | |||||||||||
Spokane words arepolysynthetic, typically based on roots with CVC(C) structure, plus manyaffixes. There is one main stress in each word, though the location of stress is determined in a complex way (Black 1996).[20][21]
OC:out-of-control morpheme reduplicationSUCCESS:success aspect morpheme
Given itspolysynthetic 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.
puls
die, kill
-VC
-OC
-st
-TR
-el'
puls -VC -st -el'
{die, kill} -OC -TR -SUCCESS
'He got to kill (one)'
Something that is unique to the Spokane dialect is the SUCCESS aspect morpheme: -nu.[22] 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.
ɫip'
mark
-nu
-nt-
-TR
ɫip' -nu -nt- en
mark -SUCCESS -TR -1sg.SUBJ
'I had a hard time marking it'
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.
tuʔ
stab
-VC
-OC
-nu
-nt
-TR
tuʔ -VC -nu -nt -en
stab -OC -SUCCESS -TR -1sg.SUBJ
'I managed to stab it/him/her by accident.'
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:
puls
die, kill
-VC
-OC
-st
-TR
-el'
puls -VC -st -el'
{die, kill} -OC -TR -SUCCESS
'He got to kill (one)'
šíč'l'
he missed
u
and
ʔax̩í
finally
u
and
pllstél'
he got to kill (one)
šíč'l' u ʔax̩í u pllstél'
{he missed} and finally and {he got to kill (one)}
'He kept missing, but finally he got to kill (one)'
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