Makah language

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The Makah language is the Indigenous language spoken by the Makah people. Makah has been extinct as a first language since 2002, when its last fluent native speaker died. However, it survives as a second language, and the Makah tribe is attempting to revive the language, including through preschool classes. The endonymous name for Makah is q^wi·q^wi·diččaq.

Makah is spoken by the Makah people who reside in the northwestern corner of the Olympic Peninsula of Washington state, on the south side of the Strait of Juan de Fuca. It is closely related to Nuu-chah-nulth and Ditidaht, which are languages of the First Nations of the west coast of Vancouver Island on the north side of the strait, in the Canadian province of British Columbia. Makah is the only member of the Wakashan language family in the United States, with the other members spoken by in British Columbia, between Vancouver Island and the Central Coast region.

Makah, Nuu-chah-nulth and Ditidaht belong to the Southern Nootkan branch of the Wakashan family. The Northern Wakashan languages, which are Kwak'wala, Heiltsuk-Oowekyala and Haisla, are spoken farther north, beyond the territory of the Nuu-chah-nulth people.

Structure

Phonology

The phonemes (distinctive sounds) of Makah are presented below in the Makah alphabet; if the symbol in the native alphabet differs from the IPA symbol, the IPA equivalent will be given in brackets.

Consonants

		Labial	Alveolar	Alveolar lateral	Alveolar affricate	Postalveolar	Velar	Labiovelar	Uvular	Labialized uvular	Glottal consonant
Stops and affricates	Voiceless	p	t	ƛ [tɬ]	c [ʦ]	č [ʧ]	k	kʷ	q	qʷ	ʔ
	Ejective	p̓ [p’]	t̓ [t’]	ƛ̓ [tɬ’]	c̓ [ʦ’]	č̓ [ʧ’]	k̓ [k’]	k̓ʷ [kʷ’]	q̓ [q’]	q̓ʷ [qʷ’]
	Voiced	b	d
Fricatives			s	ł [ɬ]		š [ʃ]	x	xʷ	x̌ [χ]	x̌ʷ [χʷ]
Approximants				l		y [j]		w

Vowels There are five "short" vowels (actually lax), written a, e, i, o, and u, and pronounced [ə], [ɛ], [ɪ], [ɔ], and [ʊ]), five "long" vowels (written a·, e·, i·, o·, and u·, and pronounced [a], [æ], [i], [o], and [u]), and six "diphthongs" (written ay, oy, ey, iy, aw, and uy, and pronounced [aj], [ɔj], [e], [iː], [aw], and [uːj]).

Morphology

Like other Wakashan languages, Makah inflects verbs for evidentiality, indicating the level and source of the speaker's knowledge about a statement. Some examples are shown in the following table:

Example	Translation	Evidential
hi·dawʔaƛwa·d	"I hear he found it"	-wa·t, hearsay
pu·pu·q̓adʔi	"he's blowing a whistle"	-q̓adi, auditory
č̓apaccaqil	"It looks like a canoe"	-caqił, uncertain visual evidence, as trying to make out something at a distance
haʔuk̓aƛpi·dic	"I see you ate"	-pi·t, inference from physical evidence
dudu·k̓aƛx̌a·š	"He's probably singing"	-x̌a·-š, inferred probability

Alongside those examples, compare corresponding sentences without the evidentials: hi·dawʔal, "he found it"; č̓apac̓, "it's a canoe"; haʔuk̓alic, "you're eating"; dudu·k̓al, "he's singing".

References

Bibliography

Renker, Ann M. and Gunther, Erna (1990). "Makah". In "Northwest Coast", ed. Wayne Suttles. Vol. 7 of Handbook of North American Indians, ed. William C. Sturtevant. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution.

External links

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Last updated on Sunday February 10, 2008 at 16:43:50 PST (GMT -0800)
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