A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | CH | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9
| Nuxalk | |
|---|---|
| Bella Coola | |
| ItNuxalkmc[1] | |
| Native to | Canada |
| Region | Bella Coola area, Central Coast region, British Columbia |
| Ethnicity | 1,660 Nuxalk (2014, FPCC)[2] |
Native speakers | 17 (2014, FPCC)[2] |
Salishan
| |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | blc |
| Glottolog | bell1243 |
| ELP | Nuxalk |
 Bella Coola is classified as Critically Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger | |
| People | Nuxalkmc |
|---|---|
| Language | ItNuxalkmc |
| Country | Kulhulmcilh |
Nuxalk /ˈnuːhɒlk/, also known as Bella Coola /ˈbɛlə.ˈkuːlə/, is a Salishan language spoken by the Nuxalk people. Today, it is an endangered language in the vicinity of the Canadian town of Bella Coola, British Columbia.[3][4] While the language is still sometimes called Bella Coola by linguists, the native name Nuxalk is preferred by some, notably by the Nuxalk Nation's government.[5][1]
Though the number of truly fluent speakers has not increased, the language is now taught in both the provincial school system and the Nuxalk Nation's own school, Acwsalcta, which means "a place of learning". Nuxalk 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. CKNN-FM Nuxalk Radio is also working to promote the language.
Name
The name "Nuxalk" for the language comes from the native nuxalk (or nuχalk), referring to the "Bella Coola Valley".[6] "Bella Coola" is a rendering of the Heiltsuk bḷ́xʷlá, meaning "stranger".[7]
Geographical distribution
Nowadays, Nuxalk is spoken only in Bella Coola, British Columbia, surrounded by Wakashan- and Athabascan-speaking tribes. It was once spoken in over 100 settlements, with varying dialects, but in the present day most of these settlements have been abandoned and dialectal differences have largely disappeared.[7]
Classification
Nuxalk forms its own subgroup of the Salish language family. Its lexicon is equidistant from Coast and Interior Salish, but it shares phonological and morphological features with Coast Salish (e.g., the absence of pharyngeals and the presence of marked gender). Nuxalk also borrows many words from contiguous North Wakashan languages (especially Heiltsuk), as well as some from neighbouring Athabascan languages and Tsimshian.[7]
Phonology
Consonants
Nuxalk has 29 consonants depicted below in IPA and the Americanist orthography of Davis & Saunders when it differs from the IPA.
| Labial | Alveolar | Velar | Uvular | Glottal | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| plain | sibilant | lateral | palatal | labialized | plain | labialized | ||||
| Stop | aspirated | pʰ ⟨p⟩ | tʰ ⟨t⟩ | t͡sʰ ⟨c⟩ | t͡ɬʰ ⟨ƛ⟩ | cʰ ⟨k⟩ | kʷʰ ⟨kʷ⟩ | qʰ ⟨q⟩ | qʷʰ ⟨qʷ⟩ | |
| ejective | pʼ ⟨p̓⟩ | tʼ ⟨t̓⟩ | t͡sʼ ⟨c̓⟩ | t͡ɬʼ ⟨ƛ̓⟩ | cʼ ⟨k̓⟩ | kʷʼ ⟨k̓ʷ⟩ | qʼ ⟨q̓⟩ | qʷʼ ⟨q̓ʷ⟩ | ʔ | |
| Fricative | s | ɬ ⟨ł⟩ | ç ⟨x⟩ | xʷ | χ ⟨x̣⟩ | χʷ ⟨x̣ʷ⟩ | (h) | |||
| Sonorant | m | n | l | j ⟨y⟩ | w | |||||
What are transcribed in the orthography as 'plain' velar consonants are actually palatals, and the sibilants s c c̓ palatalize to š č č̓ before x k k̓.
Vowels
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | ||
| Mid | o | ||
| Open | a |
Allophony
/i/ may be pronounced:
- before postvelars
- between postvelars
- , before a sonorant followed by a consonant or word boundary
- adjacent to palatovelars
- elsewhere
/a/ may be pronounced:
- (?) surrounded by postvelars
- before rounded velars followed by a consonant or word boundary
- (?) before a sonorant followed by a consonant or word boundary
- elsewhere
/o/ may be pronounced:
- surrounded by postvelars
- before a sonorant followed by a consonant or word boundary
- before rounded velars followed by a consonant or word boundary
- elsewhere[8]
Orthography
In addition to the Americanist orthography of Davis & Saunders used in this article for clarity, Nuxalk also has a non-diacritical Bouchard-type practical orthography that originated in Hank Nater's The Bella Coola Language (1984), and was used in his 1990 Nuxalk-English Dictionary. It continues to be used today at Acwsalcta for Nuxalk language learning, as well as in Nuxalk documents and names.[9] The orthographic variants are summarized below.
| Phoneme | Americanist | Practical |
|---|---|---|
| a | a | a |
| xʲ | x | c |
| xʷ | xʷ | cw |
| h | h | h |
| i | i | i |
| kʲʰ | k | k |
| kʼʲ | k̓ | k' |
| kʷʰ | kʷ | kw |
| kʼʷ | k̓ʷ | kw' |
| l | l | l |
| ɬ | ł | lh |
| m | m | m |
| n | n | n |
| pʰ | p | p |
| pʼ | p̓ | p' |
| qʰ | q | q |
| qʼ | q̓ | q' |
| qʷʰ | qʷ | qw |
| qʼʷ | q̓ʷ | qw' |
| s | s | s |
| tʰ | t | t |
| tʼ | t̓ | t' |
| t͡ɬʰ | ƛ | tl |
| t͡ɬʼ | ƛ̓ | tl' |
| t͡sʰ | c | ts |
| t͡sʼ | c̓ | ts' |
| u | u | u |
| w | w | w |
| χ | x̣ | x |
| χʷ | x̣ʷ | xw |
| j | y | y |
| ʔ | ʔ | 7 |
Syllables
The notion of syllable is challenged by the Nuxalk language, in that the language includes long strings of consonants without any intervening vowel or other sonorant. Salishan languages, and especially Nuxalk, are famous for this. For instance, the following word contains only obstruents:
xɬpʼχʷɬtʰɬpʰɬːskʷʰt͡sʼ
xɬ-
possess-
pʼχʷɬt-
bunchberry-
ɬp-
plant-
ɬɬ-
PAST.PERF-
s=
3SG.SUB/3SG.OBJ=
kʷt͡sʼ
then
'then he had had in his possession a bunchberry plant.' [10]
Other examples are:
- pʰs 'shape, mold'
- pʼs 'bend'
- pʼχʷɬtʰ 'bunchberry'
- t͡sʰkʰtʰskʷʰt͡sʰ 'he arrived'
- tʰt͡sʰ 'little boy'
- skʷʰpʰ 'saliva'
- spʰs 'northeast wind'
- tɬʼpʰ 'cut with scissors'
- st͡sʼqʰ 'animal fat'
- st͡sʼqʰt͡sʰtʰx 'that's my animal fat over there'
- sxs 'seal fat'
- tʰɬ 'strong'
- qʼtʰ 'go to shore'
- qʷʰtʰ 'crooked'
- kʼxɬːtʰsxʷ.sɬχʷtʰɬːt͡s 'you had seen that I had gone through a passage'[8]
There has been some dispute 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 Nuxalk. However, when recordings are available, the syllable structure can be clearly audible, and speakers have clear conceptions as to how many syllables a word contains. In general, a syllable may be C̩, CF̩ (where F is a fricative), CV, or CVC. When C is a stop, CF syllables are always composed of a plain voiceless stop (pʰ, tʰ, t͡sʰ, kʰ, kʷ, qʰ, qʷ) plus a fricative (s, ɬ, x, xʷ, χ, χʷ). For example, płt 'thick' is two syllables, pʰɬ.t, with a syllabic fricative, while in tʼχtʰ 'stone', stʼs 'salt', qʷtʰ 'crooked', k̓ʰx 'to see' and ɬqʰ 'wet' each consonant is a separate syllable. Stop-fricative sequences can also be disyllabic, however, as in tɬ 'strong' (two syllables, at least in the cited recording) and kʷs 'rough' (one syllable or two). Syllabification of stop-fricative sequences may therefore be lexicalized or a prosodic tendency. Fricative-fricative sequences also have a tendency toward syllabicity, e.g. with sx 'bad' being one syllable or two, and sχs 'seal fat' being two syllables (sχ.s) or three. Speech rate plays a role, with e.g. ɬxʷtʰɬt͡sʰxʷ 'you spat on me' consisting of all syllabic consonants in citation form (ɬ.xʷ.tʰ.ɬ.t͡sʰ.xʷ) but condensed to stop-fricative syllables (ɬxʷ.tɬ.t͡sʰxʷ) at fast conversational speed.[11] This syllabic structure may be compared with that of Miyako.
The linguist Hank Nater has postulated the existence of a phonemic contrast between syllabic and non-syllabic sonorants: /m̩, n̩, l̩/, spelled ṃ, ṇ, ḷ. (The vowel phonemes /i, u/ would then be the syllabic counterparts of /j, w/.)[12] Words claimed to have unpredictable syllables include sṃnṃnṃuuc 'mute', smṇmṇcaw '(the fact) that they are children'.[13]
Grammaredit
Eventsedit
The first element in a sentence expresses the event of the proposition. It inflects for the person and number of one (in the intransitive paradigm) or two (in the transitive paradigm) participants.
| Intr. inflection | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| 1st Person | -c | -(i)ł |
| 2nd Person | -nu | -(n)ap |
| 3rd Person | -Ø or -s | -(n)aw |
E.g. ƛ̓ikm-Ø ti-wac̓-tx 'the dog is running'.
Whether the parenthesized segments are included in the suffix depends on whether the stem ends in an underlying resonant (vowel, liquid, nasal) and whether it is non-syllabic. So qāχla 'drink' becomes qāχla-ł 'we drink', qāχla-nap 'you (pl.) drink', qāχla-naw 'they drink', but nuyamł 'sing' becomes nuyamł-ił 'we're singing', nuyamł-ap 'you (pl.) are singing', nuyamł-aw 'they're singing'.
However, the choice of the 3ps marker -Ø or -s is conditioned by semantics rather than phonetics. For example, the sentences tix-s ti-ʔimlk-tx and tix-Ø ti-ʔimlk-tx could both be glossed 'it's the man', but the first is appropriate if the man is the one who is normally chosen, while the second is making an assertion that it is the man (as opposed to someone else, as might otherwise be thought) who is chosen.[further explanation needed]
The following are the possible person markers for transitive verbs, with empty cells indications non-occurring combinations and '--' identifying semantic combinations which require the reflexive suffix -cut- followed by the appropriate intransitive suffix:
| Transitive inflection |
Experiencer: | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| singular | plural | ||||||||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 3 | ||||
Executor:
|
singular
|
1 | – | -cinu | -ic | -tułap | -tic | ||
| 2 | -cxʷ | – | -ixʷ | -tułnu | -tixʷ | ||||
| 3 | -cs | -ct | -is | -tułs | -tap | -tis | |||
plural
|
1 | -tułnu | -ił | – | -tułap | -tił | |||
| 2 | -cap | -ip | -tułp | – | -tip | ||||
| 3 | -cant | -ct | -it | -tułt | -tap | -tit | |||
E.g. sp̓-is ti-ʔimlk-tx ti-stn-tx 'the man struck the tree'.
Whether a word can serve as an event isn't determined lexically, e.g. ʔimmllkī-Ø ti-nusʔūlχ-tx 'the thief is a boy', nusʔūlχ-Ø ti-q̓s-tx 'the one who is ill is a thief'.
There is a further causative paradigm whose suffixes may be used instead: