Samish dialect
Dialect of North Straits Salish
Samish (Xws7ámeshqen, IPA: [xʷsʔ'e.məʃ.qen]) is a dialect of the North Straits Salish dialect continuum spoken by the Indigenous Samish people of the Pacific Northwest. Samish is traditionally referred to as a language, but it is mutually intelligible with the other dialects of North Straits Salish. Samish is a Coast Salish language and is closely related to other languages in that family.
The Samish language is still spoken by some Samish tribal members, and the Samish Indian Nation's Xws7ámeshqen Program is working to revitalize the language in daily life. They offer classes to tribal citizens and have an online website with a wordlist and placenames.
01Phonology
| Bilabial | Dental | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Postvelar | Glottal | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| median | sibilant | lateral | plain | lab. | plain | lab. | ||||||
| Plosive/ Affricate |
plain | p | t | (t͡s) | t͡ʃ | (k) | kʷ | q | qʷ | ʔ | ||
| ejective | pʼ | t͡θʼ | tʼ | (t͡sʼ) | t͡ɬʼ | t͡ʃʼ | kʷʼ | qʼ | qʷʼ | |||
| Fricative | s | ɬ | ʃ | xʷ | χ | χʷ | h | |||||
| Sonorant | plain | m | n | l | j | w | ŋ | |||||
| glottalized | mˀ | nˀ | lˀ | jˀ | wˀ | ŋˀ | ||||||
- /t͡s/ is a rare sound, only occurring in the deictic morpheme ⟨cə⟩.
- /t͡θʼ/ may commonly be heard as [t͡sʼ] in free variation among speakers.
- /k/ is only found in loanwords.
02Orthography
| Uppercase | Lowercase | IPA |
|---|---|---|
| 7 | /ʔ/ | |
| A | a | /e/ |
| Ch | ch | /t͡ʃ/ |
| Ch' | ch' | /t͡ʃ‘/ |
| E | e | /e~ə/ |
| H | h | /h/ |
| I | i | /i/ |
| K | k | /k~k’/ |
| Kw | kw | /kʷ/ |
| Kw' | kw' | /kʷ’/ |
| L | l | /l/ |
| Lh | lh | /ɬ/ |
| M | m | /m/ |
| N | n | /n/ |
| Ng | ng | /ŋ/ |
| O | o | /ɔ/ |
| P | p | /p/ |
| P' | p' | /p’/ |
| Q | q | /q/ |
| Q' | q' | /q’/ |
| Qw | qw | /qʷ/ |
| Qw' | qw' | /qʷʼ/ |
| S | s | /s/ |
| Sh | sh | /ʃ/ |
| T | t | /t/ |
| T' | t' | /t’/ |
| Tl' | tl' | /t͡ɬ’/ |
| Ts | ts | /ts/ |
| Ts' | ts' | /ts’/ |
| U | u | /u/ |
| W | w | /w/ |
| X̲ | x̲ | /χ/ |
| Xw | xw | /xʷ/ |
| X̲w | x̲w | /χʷ/ |
| Y | y | /j/ |
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Samish dialect”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
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