Salishan languages
Encyclopedia : S : SA : SAL : Salishan languages
- This article is about the Salish/Salishan language. For the Tacoma, Washington, neighbourhood, see Salishan, Tacoma, Washington.
The terms Salish and Salishan are used interchangeably by Salishan linguists and anthropologists. The name Salish is actually the name of the language of Salish tribe in Montana. The name was later extended by linguists to refer to other related languages. Many languages do not have self-designations and instead have specific names for local dialects as the local group was more important culturally than larger tribal relations.
All Salishan languages are endangered—some extremely so with only three or four speakers left. Practically all languages only have speakers who are over sixty years of age, and many languages only have speakers over eighty.
Family division
The Salishan language family consists of twenty-three languages. Below is a list of Salishan languages, dialects, and sub-dialects. This list is a linguistic classification that may not correspond to political divisions. Many Salishan groups consider their variety of speech to be a separate language rather than a dialect.
I. Bella Coola
|
Genetic relations
No relationship to any other language is well established. The most plausible connection is with the language isolate Kutenai (Kootenai), which is generally considered not unlikely but not solidly established.Edward Sapir suggested that the Salishan languages may be related to the Wakashan and Chimakuan languages in a hypothetical Mosan family. This proposal persists primarily due to Sapir's stature. There is little evidence for it and no progress has been made in reconstructing such a family.
The Salishan languages, principally Chehalis, contributed greatly to the vocabulary of the Chinook Jargon.
Family features
- generalized sound system
- post-velar harmony (more areal)
- syllables
- reduplication
- nonconcatenation (infix, metathesis, glottalization)
- control
- tenselessness
- nounlessness controversy
External links
- [Bibliography of Materials on Salishan Languages] (YDLI)
- [University of Montana Occasional Papers in Linguistics (UMOPL)] (Native languages of the Northwest)
- [Coast Salish Culture: an Outline Bibliography]
- [Coast Salish Collections]
- [International Conference on Salish and Neighboring Languages]
- [The Salishan Studies List] (Linguist List)
- [Okanagan language resources] (includes sound files)
- [Native Peoples, Plants & Animals: Halkomelem]
- [Saanich] (Timothy Montler's site)
- [Klallam] (Timothy Montler's site)
- [A Bibliography of Northwest Coast Linguistics]
- [Classification of the Salishan languages reflecting current scholarship]
- [Ethnologue classification for Salishan]
Bibliography
- Czaykowska-Higgins, Ewa; & Kinkade, M. Dale (Eds.). (1997). Salish languages and linguistics: Theoretical and descriptive perspectives. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. ISBN 3-11-015492-7.
- Kroeber, Paul D. (1999). The Salish language family: Reconstructing syntax. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press in cooperation with the American Indian Studies Research Institute, Indiana University, Bloomington.
- Thompson, Laurence C. (1973). The northwest. In T. A. Sebeok (Ed.), Linguistics in North America (pp. 979-1045). Current trends in linguistics (Vol. 10). The Hauge: Mouton.
- Thompson, Laurence C. (1979). Salishan and the northwest. In L. Campbell & M. Mithun (Eds.), The languages of native America: Historical and comparative assessment (pp. 692-765). Austin: University of Texas Press.
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.