Tillamook_language

Tillamook language

Tillamook language

Extinct Salishan language of northwestern Oregon, US

Tillamook is an extinct Salishan language, formerly spoken by the Tillamook people in northwestern Oregon, United States. The last fluent speaker was Minnie Scovell who died in 1972.[1] In an effort to prevent the language from being lost, a group of researchers from the University of Hawaii interviewed the few remaining Tillamook-speakers and created a 120-page dictionary.[2]

Quick Facts Native to, Region ...

Phonology

Vowels

More information Front, Back ...

Consonants

More information Alveolar, Post-alveolar ...

Internal rounding

The so-called "rounded" consonants (traditionally marked with the diacritic ⟨ʷ⟩, but here indicated with ⟨ᵓ⟩), including rounded vowels and ⟨w⟩ (/ɰᵓ/), are not actually labialized. The acoustic effect of labialization is created entirely inside the mouth by cupping the tongue (sulcalization). Uvulars with this distinctive internal rounding have "a kind of ɔ timbre" while "rounded" front velars have ɯ coloring. These contrast and oppose otherwise very similar segments having ɛ or ɪ coloring—the "unrounded" consonants.

/w/ is also formed with this internal rounding instead of true labialization, making it akin to [ɰ]. So are vowel sounds formerly written as /o/ or /u/, which are best characterized as the diphthong /əɰ/ with increasing internal rounding.[3]

Notes

  1. [1]
    "A language all but lost".
  2. [2]
    Official site of Clatsop-Nehalem Confederated Tribes Archived 2011-06-16 at the Wayback Machine
  3. [3]
    Thompson & Thompson (1966), p. 316

Bibliography

  • Thompson, Lawrence C.; M. Terry Thompson (1966). "A Fresh Look at Tillamook Phonology". International Journal of American Linguistics. 32 (4): 313–319. doi:10.1086/464920. S2CID 145658086.
  • Edel, May M (1939). The Tillamook language. New York: J.J. Augustin. OCLC 10272025.
  • "May M. Edel papers". Special Collections, University of Washington Libraries. Retrieved 2013-09-22.
Share this article:

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Tillamook_language, and is written by contributors. Text is available under a CC BY-SA 4.0 International License; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.