Salishan languages
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The Salishan (also Salish) languages are a group of languages of western Canada and the Pacific Northwest of the United States. They are characterised by agglutinativity and astonishing consonant clusters—for instance the Nuxálk word (IPA: ) meaning 'he had had a bunchberry plant' has 13 consonants in a row with no vowels.
Salishan_langs.png
The terms Salish and Salishan are used interchangeably by Salishan linguists and anthropologists. Many languages do not have self-designations and instead have specific names for local dialects as the local group was much more important culturally than larger tribal relations.
Family division
The Salishan language family consists of 23 languages:
I. Bella Coola
- 1. Nuxálk (a.k.a. Bella Coola)
II. Coast Salish
- A. Central Coast Salish (a.k.a. Central Salish)
- i. North Georgia
- ii. South Georgia
- 5. Squamish (a.k.a. Sqwxwu7mish, Skwxwu7mesh)
- 6. Halkomelem
- 7. Nooksack
- Straits Salish
- 8. Northern Straits
- 9. Klallam (a.k.a. Clallam)
- iii. Lushootseed
- 10. Lushootseed (a.k.a. Puget Salish, Skagit-Nisqually)
- iv. Twana
- 11. Skokomish (a.k.a. Twana)
- B. Tsamosan (a.k.a. Olympic)
- i. Maritime
- 12. Quinault
- 13. Lower Chehalis
- ii. Inland
- 14. Upper Chehalis
- 15. Cowlitz (a.k.a. Lower Cowlitz)
- i. Maritime
- C. Tillamook
- 16. Tillamook (a.k.a. Hutyéyu)
III. Interior Salish
- A. Northern
- 17. Shuswap (a.k.a. Secwepemctsín)
- 18. St’át’imcets (a.k.a. Lillooet)
- 19. Thompson (a.k.a. Nlaka’pamux, Ntlakapmuk)
- B. Southern
- 20. Colville-Okanagan (a.k.a. Okanagan, Nsilxcín)
- 21. Spokane-Kalispel-Flathead
- 22. Coeur d’Alene (a.k.a. Snchitsu’umshtsn)
- 23. Columbian (a.k.a. Columbia, Moses Columbia, Moses Columbian)
Pentlatch, Nooksack, Twana, Lower Chehalis, Upper Chehalis, Cowlitz, and Tillamook are now extinct. Many dialects of the other languages are also extinct. All Salishan languages are endangered—some extremely so (i.e. only 3 or 4 speakers left).
External link
- Ethnologue classification for Salishan (http://www.ethnologue.com/show_family.asp?subid=1725)
Bibliography
- de:Salish-Sprachen
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