Saanich (linguistics)
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Saanich (also Sənčaθən, written as SENĆOŦEN in Saanich orthography) is the language of the Saanich peoples. Saanich is a member of a dialect continuum called Northern Straits which is a Coast Salishan language. The Northern Straits varieties are closely related to the Klallam language.
Sounds
Vowels
Consonants
| Bilabial | Dental | Alveolar | Lateral | Postalveolar | Palatal | Velar | Uvular | Glottal | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plain | Rounded | Plain | Rounded | |||||||||
| Stop | Plain | |||||||||||
| Glottalized | ||||||||||||
| Affricate | Plain | |||||||||||
| Glottalized | ||||||||||||
| Fricative | ||||||||||||
| Nasal | Plain | |||||||||||
| Glottalized | ||||||||||||
| Approximant | Plain | |||||||||||
| Glottalized | ||||||||||||
/s̪ ts̪ʼ/ are also written /θ tθʼ/, although they are grooved, not interdental. The uvular nasals /ɴ ɴʷ/ are also written /ŋ ŋʷ/, but they are not velar.
The status of the glottalized resonants /mʼ nʼ ɴʼ ɴʷʼ lʼ jʼ wʼ/ is not agreed upon. Some linguists analyse them as unit phonemes, others as sequences of a plain resonant and a glottal stop /ʔ/.
Writing system
The Saanich orthography was created by Dave Elliot in 1978. It uses only uppercase letters, with one exception: the letter s, which marks the third person possessive suffix.| A | Á | B | C | Ć | D | E | H | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| /e/ | |||||||||
| I | Í | J | K | * | L | M | |||
| N | O | P | Q | S | Ś | T | |||
| Ŧ | U | W | X | Y | Z | s | |||
| ? | |||||||||
The glottal stop /ʔ/ is not always indiciated, but may be written with a comma: ,.
Plain and glottalized resonants are not distinguished.
The vowel /e/ is usually written Á, unless it occurs next to an uvular consonant (/q qʷ qʼ qʷʼ χ χʷ ɴ ɴʷ/), where is is written A.
Grammar
Metathesis
In Saanich, metathesis is used as a grammatical devise to indicate "actual" aspect. The actual aspect is most often translated into English as a be ... -ing progressive. The actual aspect is derived from the "nonactual" verb form by a CV → VC metathesis process (i.e. consonant metathesizes with vowel).
| T̵X̱ÉT 'shove' (nonactual) | → | T̵ÉX̱T 'shoving' (actual) |
| ṮPÉX̱ 'scatter' (nonactual) | → | ṮÉPX̱ 'scattering' (actual) |
| T̸L̵ÉQ 'pinch' (nonactual) | → | T̸ÉL̵Q 'pinching' (actual) |
External links
- [An Outline of the Morphology and Phonology of Saanich, North Straits Salish] (1986) (Timothy Montler's site)
- * [Phonology]
- * [Morphology]
- * [Sample text]
- [Saanich Classified Word List] (1991) (Timothy Montler's site)
- [SENĆOŦEN (Saanich, Northern Straits Salish)] (Chris Harvey's Native Language, Font & Keyboard)
- [Saanich Indian School Board]
- [SENĆOŦEN Welcome page] (First Voices)
Bibliography
- Bill, Adriane; Cayou, Roxanne; & Jim, Jacquelin. (2003). NET
- Mithun, Marianne. (1999). The languages of Native North America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-23228-7 (hbk); ISBN 0-521-29875-X.
- Montler, Timothy. (1986). An outline of the morphology and phonology of Saanich, North Straits Salish. Occasional Papers in Linguistics (No. 4). Missoula, MT: University of Montana Linguistics Laboratory. (Web version of the author's PhD dissertation, University of Hawaii).
- Montler, Timothy. (1996). Languages and dialects in Straits Salishan. Proceedings of the International Conference on Salish and Neighboring Languages, 31, 249-256.
- Montler, Timothy. (1999). Language and dialect variation in Straits Salishan. Anthropological linguistics, 41 (4), 462-502.
- Thompson, Laurence; Thompson, M. Terry; & Efrat, Barbara. (1974). Some phonological developments in Straits Salish. International Journal of American Linguistics, 40, 182-196.
- YELḰÁTT̵E [Claxton, Earl, Sr.] & STOLC̸EL̵ [Elliot, John, Sr.]. (1994). Reef Net Technology of the Saltwater People. Brentwood Bay, B.C.: Saanich Indian School Board.
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