Quileute language

Quileute
Kʷòʔlíyotʼ
Native to Olympic Peninsula, Washington
Ethnicity 500 Quileute (2007)[1]
Extinct 1999[1]
Chimakuan
  • Quileute
Dialects
  • Hoh
Language codes
ISO 639-3 qui
Glottolog quil1240[2]

Quileute /ˈkwɪlᵻjuːt/,[3] also known as Quillayute /kwᵻˈleɪjuːt/, was the last Chimakuan language, spoken until the end of the 20th century by Quileute and Makah elders on the western coast of the Olympic peninsula south of Cape Flattery at La Push and the lower Hoh River in Washington State, United States. The name Quileute comes from kʷoʔlí·yot’ [kʷoʔléːjotʼ], the name of a village at La Push.

Quileute is famous for its lack of nasal sounds, such as [m], [n], or nasal vowels, an areal feature of Puget Sound.[4] Quileute is polysynthetic and words can be quite long.

Use and revitalization efforts

There were ten elderly speakers in 1977, and "a few" in 1999.[5] The Quileute Nation is attempting to prevent the loss of the language by teaching it in the Quileute Tribal School, using books written for the students by the tribal elders.

"[In 2007], the Tribal Council set up a two-year Quileute Revitalization Project with the goal of encouraging the use of Quileute words and phrases in everyday village life. A basic vocabulary of greetings, questions, numbers, names of things, and "one-liners" in Quileute were made available to tribal members and staff through informal classes, email and computer CDs."[6]

Phonology

Quileute has three vowels, /e/, /a/, /o/ long and short (pronounced [i], [ə], [o] when short and in non-tonic syllables), as well as /æː/ which only occurs long. Stress is historically penultimate, though this has become somewhat obscured and is no longer predictable. There are no nasal consonants. It has the following consonants (t͡ɬ and ɡ are rare):

Bilabial Alveolar Palatal Velar Uvular Glottal
central lateral plain labialized plain labialized
Plosive voiceless p t k kʷ q qʷ ʔ
voiced b d (ɡ)
ejective pʼ tʼ kʼ kʼʷ qʼ qʼʷ
Affricate voiceless t͡s (t͡ɬ) t͡ʃ
ejective t͡sʼ t͡ɬʼ t͡ʃʼ
Fricative s ɬ ʃ x xʷ χ χʷ h
Approximant ɬ j w

Morphology

Quileute features an interesting prefix system that changes depending on the physical characteristics of the person being spoken of, the speaker, or rarely the person being addressed.[7] When speaking of a cross-eyed person, /ɬ-/ is prefixed to each word. When speaking of a hunchback, the prefix /t͡sʼ-/ is used. Additional prefixes are also used for short men (/s-/), "funny people" (/t͡ʃk-/), and people that have difficulty walking (/t͡ʃχ-/).[8][7]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 Quileute at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
  2. ↑ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin; Bank, Sebastian, eds. (2016). "Quileute". Glottolog 2.7. Jena: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  3. ↑ Laurie Bauer, 2007, The Linguistics Student’s Handbook, Edinburgh
  4. ↑ Mithun, Marianne (2001). The Languages of Native North America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 20. ISBN 978-0-521-29875-9.
  5. ↑ Mithun, The Languages of Native North America
  6. ↑ "Quileute Nation - Language". Retrieved 2012-12-02.
  7. 1 2 3 Frachtenberg, Leo J. (December 1920). "Abnormal Types of Speech in Quileute". IJAL. 1 (4): 296–297. JSTOR 1263204. Most affixes and forms representing an abnormal type of speech are used either by the speaker himself or by another person speaking of the individual whom such a speech-form intends to single out. In few cases only is the abnormal form used in direct address, the reason for this being too apparent to require any comment. [pp. 296–297]
  8. ↑ Mithun, Marianne (1999). The Languages of Native North America, p. 275. Cambridge University Press. (Citing Frachtenberg 1920 (her 1920b),[7] but misattributing to "Frachtenberg 1917": Mithun's bibliography includes many of his other works, including a 1917a and 1917b, both on other topics.)
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