Tillamook language

Last updated
Tillamook
Hutyáyu, Hutyéyu
Native to United States
RegionNorthwestern Oregon
Ethnicity Tillamook, Siletz
Extinct 1972, with the death of Minnie Scovell [1]
Dialects
  • Tillamook
  • Siletz
Language codes
ISO 639-3 til
Glottolog till1254
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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]

Contents

Phonology

Vowels

Vowels in Tillamook
Front Back
High i ə
Low æ ɑ

Consonants

Consonants in Tillamook
Alveolar Post-
alveolar
Velar Uvular Glottal
central sibilant lateral unroundedroundedunroundedrounded
Stop plain t t͡s t͡ʃ k kᵓ q qᵓ ʔ
ejective t͡sʼ t͡ɬʼ t͡ʃʼ kᵓʼ qᵓʼ
Fricative s ɬ ʃ x xᵓ χ χᵓ h
Sonorant n l j ɰᵓ

Internal rounding

The so-called "rounded" consonants (traditionally marked with the diacritic ʷ, but here indicated with ), 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 coloringthe "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 2 "A language all but lost".
  2. Official site of Clatsop-Nehalem Confederated Tribes Archived 2011-06-16 at the Wayback Machine
  3. Thompson & Thompson (1966), p. 316

Bibliography

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