Colville-Okanagan
Okanagan, Colville
n̓səl̓xčin̓,Nsyilxcən,n̓syil̓xčn̓
Native to	Canada,United States
Region	Southern Interior of British Columbia,Central-northern State of Washington
Ethnicity	Okanagan,Colville,Lakes,Methow
Native speakers	50 (2007–2014)[1] 75L2 speakers (2007)
Language family	Salishan Interior Salish Southern Colville-Okanagan
Dialects	Northern Okanagan Colville (n̓x̌ʷʔiłpcən) Lakes/Sinixt dialect (snslxcin) San-poil (Nespelem) Southern Okanagan Methow
Language codes
ISO 639-3	oka
Glottolog	okan1243
ELP	Nsyilxcən
Okanagan is classified as Definitely Endangered by theUNESCOAtlas of the World's Languages in Danger.

Okanagan,Colville-Okanagan, orNsyilxcən (n̓səl̓xcin̓ orn̓syilxčn̓) is aSalish language which arose among the Indigenous peoples of the southernInterior Plateau region based primarily in theOkanagan River Basin and theColumbia River Basin in precolonial times inCanada and theUnited States. Following British, American, and Canadiancolonization during the 1800s and the subsequent assimilation of all Salishan tribes, the use of Colville-Okanagan declined drastically.

Colville-Okanagan is highly endangered, is rarely learned as afirst language, but is being learned as asecond language by more than 40 adults and 35 children in the City of Spokane, Washington, and by several dozen adults on the Colville Indian Reservation in Washington State and among Okanagan people in the Okanagan Valley of British Columbia. About 50 deeplyfluent first-language speakers of Colville-Okanagan Salish remain, the majority of whom live in the Okanagan Valley of British Columbia.^[2] The language is currently moribund and has nofirst-language speakers younger than 50 years of age. Colville-Okanagan is the second-most spoken Salish language afterShuswap.

Historically, Colville-Okanagan originated from a language which was spoken in theColumbia River Basin and is now termed Proto Southern Interior Salish. As a result of the initial expansion of Colville-Okanagan prior to European contact, the language developed three separate dialects: Colville, Okanagan, and Lakes. A low degree of dialectic divergence exists in terms of vocabulary and grammar. Variation is primarily confined to minor differences in pronunciation.

The vast majority of Colville-Okanagan words are from Proto-Salish or Proto-Interior Salish. A number of Colville-Okanagan words are shared with or borrowed from the neighboringSalish,Sahaptian, andKutenai languages. More recentloanwords are fromEnglish andFrench. Colville-Okanagan was an exclusivelyoral form of communication until the late 19th century, when priests and linguists began transcribing the language for word lists, dictionaries, grammars, and translations. Colville-Okanagan is currently written inLatin script using theAmerican Phonetic Alphabet.

In Colville-Okanagan, the language itself is known asn̓səl̓xčin̓ ornsyilxcn. Speakers ofn̓səl̓xčin̓ occupied the northern portion of the Columbia Basin from the Methow River in the west, to Kootenay Lake in the east, and north along the Columbia River and the Arrow Lakes, as well as theSlocan Valley. In Colville-Okanagan, allnsyilxcn-speaking bands are grouped under the ethnic labelsyil̓x. syil̓x means "Salish" and is a cognate of the Spokane-Kalispel word, séliš, the enthnonym of the Bitterroot Salish people of Montana. Colville-Okanagan is the heritage language of theLower Similkameen Indian Band, theUpper Similkameen Indian Band, theWestbank First Nation, theOsoyoos Indian Band, thePenticton Indian Band, theOkanagan Indian Band, theUpper Nicola Indian Band, and theColville,Sanpoil,Okanogan,Lakes,Nespelem, andMethow bands of theConfederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation. According to nsyilxcən language keepers, words in the nsyilxcən language should not be capitalized. As described in an Indiginews article, "In an egalitarian society, capitalization insinuates there is something that holds more importance over another, and that does not fall in line with syilx ethics".^[3]

In 2012, the CBC featured a report on a family which is teaching its childrenn̓səl̓xcin̓ at home.^[4]

Seven nonprofit organizations which support Colville-Okanagan language acquisition andrevitalization are the Paul Creek Language Association inKeremeos,^[5] British Columbia, the syilx Language House^[6] in Penticton, British Columbia, the En'owkin Centre^[7] inPenticton, the Osoyoos Indian Band Language House^[8] in Oliver, British Columbia, the Hearts Gathered Waterfall Montessori inOmak, Washington, the Salish School of Spokane inSpokane, Washington, and the Inchelium Language and Culture Association inInchelium.

Revitalization efforts for Colville-Okanagan in the United States include instruction for children and intensive programs for training new adult speakers. Concentrated efforts are made on the part of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation to promote language preservation. Among the activities in which the Confederation takes part are allocating funds both local and federal for cultural preservation projects.^{[citation needed]} The Confederated Tribes' goals are to establish three language programs, develop language dictionaries, provide translation services and curriculum, and establish language classes with a regular attendance of 30 or more people.^[9]

Salish School of Spokane (SSOS)(sƛ̓x̌atkʷ nsəl̓xčin̓ sn̓maʔmáyaʔtn̓) in Washington State has a comprehensive community language revitalization strategy for Colville-Okanagan Salish. This school serves Colville-Okanagan people in the Spokane Metro Area. Salish School of Spokane serves both children and adults. SSOS currently (2021-22 school year) serves children aged 1 year old up to 9th grade with Salish immersion education. P-6 classrooms are 100% n̓səl̓xčin̓ immersion classes in which the language of instruction is n̓səl̓xčin and math, literacy, science, art, music and physical education are taught in n̓səl̓xčin. The school's programs are designed to spur full fluency in Colville-Okanagan by the age of 15. According to school expectations and curricula, children are expected to speak Colville-Okanagan for the duration of their time in school. In addition to programming for children, in July 2022, SSOS is also providing intensive n̓səl̓xčin training to more than 40 adults. Twenty-eight staff members at SSOS are enrolled in the Salish Language Educator Development (SLED) program at SSOS. These staff members receive 90 minutes of immersion n̓səl̓xčin training daily as part of their work. Another 16 adults, parents of SSOS students, participate in paid afternoon and evening n̓səlxčin̓ fluency track training. All SSOS parents commit to completing at least 60 hours of n̓səl̓xčin̓ language classes per year in order for their children to be eligible to attend the school. SSOS offers free, beginning n̓səl̓xčin̓ (Colville-Okanagan) language classes on evenings and weekends for SSOS parents and other community members. At Salish School of Spokane, there are 35 intergenerational pairs- 35 immersion school students who have at least one parent who is studying n̓səl̓xčin in a fluency-track program.^[10][11]

Salish School of Spokane aims to increase the availability of educational material by maintaining a variety of audio resources and curricula to advance Colville-Okanagan revitalization. Along with these efforts, the school provides, develops and translates curriculum. The Salish School works alongside organizations such as the Paul Creek Language Association, a nonprofit based in British Columbia, on the N̓səl̓xcin̓ Curriculum Project.^[12] The N̓səl̓xcin̓ Project aims to create foundational lesson plans from which teachers of Okanagan can draw. The project is spearheaded by Christopher Parkin, and is translated primarily by the fluent elder Sarah Peterson, with the additional help of Hazel Abrahamson and Herman Edwards. The participation of native speakers ensures clear meaning and high fidelity to the Okanagan language. The project is composed of six textbooks divided into three levels: beginner, intermediate, and advanced.^[12] Each level consists of a language book which contains a number of audio recordings, language, and learning software to ease language teaching. Additionally, each level includes a literature book. The literature book provides the vital function of providing entertainment for language learners when outside of class and also reinforces sentence construction for Okanagan. The project also contains daily quizzes, midterm-style tests, and both oral and written final exams for evaluation.^[12] The curriculum developed by the N̓səl̓xcin̓ Curriculum Project is available in electronic format online free of charge.^[13]

To encourage interest in teaching vocations, the En'owkin places a strong emphasis on its various certification programs. The Certificate of Aboriginal Language Revitalization is offered in the En'owkin Centre and is taught by linguist Maxine Baptiste. The course does have a fee involved, but the certificate is offered in partnership with theUniversity of Victoria.^[14] Additionally, the Centre offers a certification to become a Certified Early Childhood Education Assistant which is in partnership with Nicola Valley Institute of Technology. The certificate does not qualify one to teach at the secondary level, but does ensure employability in daycare and pre-K.^[14] The strategy behind these two certificates ensures that potential teachers have easy access to college credits from centers of higher learning like the University of Victoria, and potential education assistants can be involved in the education of children, thus establishing fluency in Okanagan early on.

The En'owkin Centre also emphasizes its college readiness programs. William Cohen notes in his article that many native students perform poorly in school and the high school dropout rate for aboriginal high schoolers is very high.^[15]

Additionally, a Syilx Language House was developed in 2015 in British Columbia. The goal of the house is to create 10 fluent nsyilxcen speakers in four years.^[16] In this program, participants spend 2000 hours over four years learning nsyilxcen via a variety of different teaching methods, regular assessments, frequent visits from Elders, and full immersion.^[16] Following completion of the program in 2020, the Syilx Language House is hoping to expand by developing more language houses across the Okanagan and will increase the goal to creating 100 new nsyilxcn speakers in the 2020 cohort.^[16]

In 2011, the BCIndigenous Adult and Higher Learning Association, in collaboration with the Nicola Valley Institute of Technology and En’owkin Centre initiated a new Bachelor's degree program that would be offered through theUniversity of British Columbia Okanagan in order to support Okanagan language learning and create new fluent speakers. From its inception, the Bachelor of Nsyilxcn Language Fluency (BNLF) was lead by associate professorJeannette Armstrong who serves as the program's academic lead. The BNLF was the first bachelor's degree of Indigenous language fluency offered in Canada and was developed as a model that could be duplicated across British Columbia.^[17][18]

The Bachelor of Nsyilxcn Language Fluency is a four-year program. During the first two years, students complete an Indigenous language diploma. During the third and fourth year of the program, students are assigned acapstone project at UBCO where they work in the community to promote language learning.^[18]

The first cohort of eight students graduated with a Bachelor's of Nsyilxcn Language Fluency in 2023. An additional 12 students were expected to graduate the following year, with around 100 students working towards graduation at the time.^[18]

Okanagan alphabets areunicase, with no capital letters.

The Paul Creek Language Association uses this alphabet:

The letters with acute accentá,ə́,í, andú are not counted as separate letters in this alphabet.

The Westbank First Nation uses this alphabet, in which the letters with acute accent are counted as separate letters:

Consonant inventory of Colville-Okanagan:^[20]

The vowels found in Lakes are: [i], [a], [u], [ə], and [o]. Stress will fall only on the full vowels [i], [a], and [u] in Colville-Okanagan.

The morphology of Colville-Okanagan is fairly complex. It is a head-marking language that relies mostly on grammatical information being placed directly on the predicate by means of affixes and clitics. The combination of derivational and inflectional suffixes and prefixes that are added onto the stem words make for a compact language.^[23]

Colville-Okanagan demonstrates great flexibility when dealing with persons, number, and gender. The language encodes the person via a series of prefixes and suffixes, and uses its number system in tandem with pluralized pronominals to communicate the number of actors within a sentence. For example:

In this example the /k/ classification designates that the word contains a numeral classifier.

Additionally, Colville-Okanagan relies heavily on the use of suffixes to designate gender. Okanagan handles gender in much the same way, by attaching both determiner and ‘man' to the sentence, the gender of an object or subject can be communicated:

In this example, there is a combination of 2nd singular marker with ‘wife.' ‘She' is encoded into the meaning of the word via the inclusion of the gender suffix at the end of the sentence.

Person markers within Colville-Okanagan are attached to verbs, nouns, or adjectives. The marker used depending on transitivity of verbs and other conditions outlined below. The person maker used largely depends on the case being used in the sentence.

Absolutive markers within Colville-Okanagan can only be used if the predicate of the sentence is intransitive.For example, [Kən c'k-am] (I count) is perfectly viable in Colville-Okanagan, but *[Kən c'k-ən-t] *(I count it)is not because the verb 'count' is transitive. Person markers never occur without an accompanying intransitive verb.^[23]

Simple possessives within Colville-Okanagan are predominantly a result of prefixation and circumfixation on a verb. However, Colville-Okanagan uses simple possessives as aspect forms on the verb in very complex ways. This practice is predominantly seen in Southern interior Salish languages.^[23]

Where prefixation occurs with -in / an in the 1st and 2nd person singular, /n/ may undergo deletion as below:

In the case of verbs, Colville-Okanagan morphology handles transitivity in various ways. The first is a set of rules for verbs that only have a single direct object, transitive verbs. For the ergative case there are two variants of person markers a stressed and an unstressed.

Stressed and Unstressed

The stem: c'k-ən-t is the equivalent of the transitive verb 'count.'

wikn̓t (see it) is an example of a strong -nt- transitive past/present verb, with 'XX' identifying non-occurring combinations and '--' identifying semantic combinations which require the reflexive suffix -cut-

There are two sets of verb affixes each containing two members that dictate the composition of a verb. The first set is composed of the affixes –nt-, and -ɬt-. The second set is composed of –st- and x(i)t- where ‘i' is a stressed vowel.

The major difference between two sets is how they incorporate affixes to remain grammatically correct. In the case of the –nt-, -ɬt- group, all particles and suffixes joining onto the stem and suffix of the verb will be identical for both. The –nt- affix connects to the stem of a transitive verb via suffixation. The suffix –nt- can only make reference to two persons: an actor and a primary goal.

q̓y̓əntin q'y'-ənt-in (I write something)

The -ɬt- affix is the ditransitive counterpart of –nt- and works in much the same. The difference between the two is that it refers to three persons: an actor, and two other actors or goals. Furthermore, -ɬt- is further differentiated from its ditransitive cousin -x(i)t- because it does not require a clitic to be a part of the verb.

In contrast to this group, -st- and –x(i)t- operate by unique rules. The –st- affix, much like its counterpart must be added to a verb stem by means of suffixation, it is also transitive, and refers to an actor and a primary goal, but it implies a reference to a third person, or a secondary goal without explicitly stating it.

q̓y̓əstin q'y'-əst-in. (I write it [for myself])

The -x(i)t- ditransitive affix shares all of the features of -ɬt- with the sole exception that it requires a clitic to be attached to front of the verb stem. The reason for the clitic in Okanagan is to add emphasis or focus on the second object, whereas -ɬt- makes no distinction.^[24]

Each clause in Colville-Okanagan can be divided into two parts: inflected predicates which are required for every sentence, and optional arguments. Colville-Okanagan allows a maximum of two arguments per sentence construction. These are marked by pronominal markers on the predicate. Each argument is introduced to the sentence via an initial determiner; the only exception to initial determiners is in the case of proper names which do not need determiners to introduce them. Predicates may be of any lexical category. There may be additional arguments added to a sentence in Okanagan via complementizers. Okanagan is unique among the majority of Salish languages for the inclusion of the complementizer.^[23]

Colville-Okanagan has one oblique marker that serves adapts it to several different functions depending upon the context in which it is used. The oblique marker ‘t' can be used to mark the object of an intransitive verb, as in the case below.

‘t' may also mark the agent in a passive construction, and it may be used to mark the ergative agent of transitive verbs. Finally, the oblique ‘t' may be used to mark functions including time and instrument:

‘t' may also coincide with the determiner ‘iʔ' in the case of instrumentals and passive agents:

There are a number of complements available to Colville-Okanagan to clarify its predicates among these are positional complements, which merely indicate the place of a predicate. In addition to positional complements, there are a variety of marked complements, complements used in Okanagan that express further meaning through a series of particles.^[26]

The first of the marked complements is the prefix /yi/. For the most part, /yi/ is an optional complement that is used in definite cases with the exception of cases when a proper noun is used. In such cases, the /yi/ prefix is not allowed. When /yi/ is used it refers to a definite referent.^[26]

wikən yiʔ sqilxʷ" I saw the/those people."The sequential complements are composed of the particles /ɬ/ and /ɬa/. /ɬa/ conveys temporal sequence while /ɬ/ represents a subordinate element.

way̓ x̌ast ɬ kʷ cxʷuy̓"It's good if/that you come."

way̓ x̌ast ɬa kʷ cxʷuy̓"It will be good when/after you come."

Colville-Okanagan also contains a number of locational complements which refer to when or where something happened. It is a point of reference. The /l/ and the variant /lə/particles are used to tie a predicate to a time or place.^[26]xʷuy̓ lə sənkʷəkʷəʔac."He went in the night"

Ablative complements in Colville-Okanagan come in the form of the /tl/ particle. Along with directional complements, /k̓/ and /k̓l/, Okanagan speakers can indicate motion.^[26] The ablative complement /tl/ only serves to indicate ‘moving away from.' For instance, in the sentence below, the ablative is ‘from (across the ocean).'

Kʷ scutxx tl sk̓ʷətikənx"Were you saying [that he is] from Seattle?"

The directional complement's two particles represent both direction towards something, and direction towards a specific location. /k/ signifies movement towards something:

k̓ incitxʷ"to my house" (not towards it)

The /k̓l/ particle modifies this sentence so that it specifies the house as the location to which the subject must move.k̓əl incitxʷ"To my house" (there specifically)

Verbs may react in a number of different ways when a suffix is attached to the root stem of the word. Below are a number of ways in which intransitive roots are modified.^[20]

• -t can indicate a natural characteristic of the root
  • c̓ik̓"burn"
  • c̓ik̓t"burned"
• -lx indicates the subject is engaged in an activity
  • qiclx"run"
• -ils expresses state of mind.
  • nk̓wpils"lonely"
• -p expresses lack of a subject's control
  • kmap"darkening"

Transitives:

• -n involves action upon an object by a subject
  • kʷuʔ caʔntis"he hit me"
• -s involve action or state resulting from an activity.
  • kʷu cˀaistixʷ
• -cut indicates when the action of a subject is directed toward oneself.
  • tarqncut"kick oneself"
• Transitive stems without person markings indicate imperatives
  • nlk̓ipnt"open it"
• Intransitives can express an imperative via the –x suffix:
  • xʷuyx"go"

The Okanagan system relies heavily on its affixes to demonstrate tense, space, and time. Below are demonstrated various affixes that attach to roots to encode meaning.

Of the following two examples, they are only possible in the –n transitive paradigm.^[20]

ks- unrealized action

ikstxt̓ám"I'm going to look after him"

səc- past perfectˁi-səc-txt'-am"I've been looking after him."

The following examples are for intransitives.

-kUnrealized: expresses an intentional future action or state. (I am going to...)Kn kʷal̓t" I'm warm"

-aʔxContinuative: Action or state that is in progresskn scpútaʔx"I am celebrating"

• ɬ- Movement back
• c-Movement toward speaker
• kɬ-down, and under^[20]

• tl̓from, source.
• k̓lto, at, goal, recipient, dative.
• k̓for, benefactive.
• lon, locative.
• nˁəɬwith, comitative.
• ˁitwith, by, instrumental^[20]

• Okanagan Nation Alliance
• Sinixt people

Okanagan language test ofWikipedia atWikimedia Incubator

• Colville-Okanagan language learning resources at Endangered Languages
• Salish School of Spokane
• En'owkin CentreArchived 2023-05-17 at theWayback Machine
• Interior Salish
• Vocabulary Words in Okanagan-Colville
• First Nations Languages of British Columbia entry
• Map of Northwest Coast First Nations
• Sinixt Nation Language Page

• Syilx
• Interior Salish languages
• Indigenous languages of the North American Plateau
• Indigenous languages of Washington (state)
• First Nations languages in Canada
• Languages of the United States
• Native American language revitalization

• Pages containing links to subscription-only content
• Language articles citing Ethnologue 18
• Webarchive template wayback links
• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Articles containing Okanagan-language text
• All articles with unsourced statements
• Articles with unsourced statements from October 2025