Nuxálk language

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Nuxálk
Spoken in: Canada 
Region: Bella Coola, western Central Coast Regional District, British Columbia
Total speakers: 20[1]
Language family: Salishan
 Nuxálk
Language codes
ISO 639-1: none
ISO 639-2: sal
ISO 639-3: blc
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

Nuxálk (also Bella Coola) is a Salishan language spoken in the vicinity of the Canadian town Bella Coola, British Columbia by approximately 20-30 elders. Until recently, the language was called Bella Coola, but the native designation Nuxálk is now preferred.[2]

Though the number of truly fluent speakers has not increased, the language is now taught in both the provincial school system and the Nuxálk Nation's own school, Acwsalcta, which means "a place of learning". Nuxálk language classes, if taken to at least the Grade 11 level, are considered adequate second language qualifications for entry to the major B.C. universities.

Contents

Sounds

Consonants

The 28 consonants of Nuxálk:

  Bilabial Alveolar Palatal Velar Uvular Glottal
  central lateral   palatalized labialized plain labialized  
Stop aspirated pʰ tʰ     kʲʰ kʷʰ qʰ qʷʰ ʔ
ejective pʼ tʼ     kʼʲ kʼʷ qʼ qʼʷ  
Affricate aspirated   ʦʰ              
ejective   ʦʼ tɬʼ            
Fricative     s ɬ   xʲ xʷ χ χʷ (h)
Sonorant   m n l j   w      

Vowels

  Front Central Back
High i   u
Low   a  

Syllables

The notion of syllable is challenged by Nuxálk in that it allows long strings of consonants without any intervening vowel or other sonorant. Salishan languages, and especially Nuxálk, are famous for this. For instance, the following word contains only obstruents:

xłp̓x̣ʷłtłpłłskʷc̓
[xɬpʼχʷɬtʰɬpʰɬːskʷʰʦʼ]
'he had had in his possession a bunchberry plant.'
    (Nater 1984, cited in Bagemihl 1991: 16)

Other examples are:

Linguists disagree as to how to count the syllables in such words, what if anything constitutes the nuclei of those syllables, and if the concept of 'syllable' is even applicable to Nuxálk. Some assign every stop consonant in such words to a separate syllable, whereas others attempt to consolidate them. For example, /tɬ/ 'strong' at first appears to be a single syllable with /ɬ/ as the syllable nucleus. However, [tʰʦʰ] 'little boy' (phonemically /tʦ/) may be thought of as having one syllable or two (/t.ʦ/). If one, /ʦ/ would make an unusual nucleus, with /t/ the syllable onset; and if two, both /t/ and /ʦ/ would be considered nuclei, since most theoretical approaches require every syllable to have a nucleus, as part of the definition of 'syllable'. If that assumption is relaxed, so that Nuxálk syllables can be modeled without nuclei, then /tɬ/ 'strong' could be thought of as onset and coda of a single syllable, but it would still not be clear if the /t/ and /ʦ/ of 'little boy' should be considered onset and coda of one syllable, or two onset-only syllables.

See also

References

  1. ^ Ethnologue
  2. ^ Suttles, Wayne (1990). "Introduction". In "Northwest Coast", ed. Wayne Suttles. Vol. 7 of Handbook of North American Indians, ed. William C. Sturtevant, pg. 15

Bibliography

External links