Upper Chinook language explained
| Upper Chinook |
| Nativename: | Kiksht |
| States: | United States |
| Region: | Columbia River |
| Extinct: | 11 July 2012, with the death of Gladys Thompson |
| Familycolor: | American |
| Fam1: | Chinookan |
| Iso3: | wac |
| Glotto: | wasc1239 |
Upper Chinook, endonym Kiksht,[1] also known as Columbia Chinook, and Wasco-Wishram after its last surviving dialect, is a recently extinct language of the US Pacific Northwest. It had 69 speakers in 1990, of whom 7 were monolingual: five Wasco[2] and two Wishram. In 2001, there were five remaining speakers of Wasco.[3]
The last fully fluent speaker of Kiksht, Gladys Thompson, died in July 2012.[4] She had been honored for her work by the Oregon Legislature in 2007.[5] [6] [7] Two new speakers were teaching Kiksht at the Warm Springs Indian Reservation in 2006.[8] The Northwest Indian Language Institute of the University of Oregon formed a partnership to teach Kiksht and Numu in the Warm Springs schools.[9] [10] Audio and video files of Kiksht are available at the Endangered Languages Archive.[11]
The last fluent speaker of the Wasco-Wishram dialect was Madeline Brunoe McInturff, and she died on 11 July 2006 at the age of 91.[12]
Dialects
- Multnomah, once spoken on Sauvie Island and in the Portland area in northwestern Oregon
- Kiksht
- Watlala or Watlalla, also known as Cascades, now extinct (two groups, one on each side of the Columbia River; the Oregon group were called Gahlawaihih [Curtis]).
- Hood River, now extinct (spoken by the Hood River Band of the Hood River Wasco in Oregon, also known as Ninuhltidih [Curtis] or Kwikwulit [Mooney])
- White Salmon, now extinct (spoken by the White Salmon River Band of Wishram in Washington)
- Wasco-Wishram (the Wishram lived north of the Columbia River in Washington and the kin Wasco lived south of the same river in Oregon)
- Clackamas, now extinct, was spoken in northwestern Oregon along the Clackamas and Sandy rivers.
Kathlamet has been classified as an additional dialect; it was not mutually intelligible.
Phonology
! rowspan="2" | Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Uvular | Glottal |
|---|
| plain | sibilant | lateral | plain | labial | plain | labial |
|---|
| Nasal | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | | | | | | | | |
|---|
Plosive/
Affricate | plain | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ |
|---|
| ejective | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ |
|---|
| voiced | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | | | | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | | |
|---|
| Continuant | voiceless | | | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ |
|---|
| voiced | pronounced as /ink/ | | | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | | | | |
|---|
Vowels in Kiksht are as follows: /u a i ɛ ə/.
References
- Leonard. Wesley Y.. Haynes. Erin. December 2010. Making "collaboration" collaborative: An examination of perspectives that frame linguistic field research. Language Documentation & Conservation. 4. 269–293. 10125/4482 . 1934-5275.
- https://archive.today/20060323201356/http://www.warmsprings.com/Warmsprings/Tribal_Community/History__Culture/Culture/ Culture: Language.
- Web site: Lewis & Clark—Tribes—Wasco Indians. National Geographic. 2013-02-25. https://web.archive.org/web/20021222182915/http://www.nationalgeographic.com/lewisandclark/record_tribes_065_13_32.html. dead. December 22, 2002.
- News: Kristian Foden-Vencil. Last Fluent Speaker Of Oregon Tribal Language 'Kiksht' Dies. Oregon Public Broadcasting. 2013-02-26. 2012-07-17. https://web.archive.org/web/20191010153203/http://www.opb.org/news/article/last-fluent-speaker-oregon-tribal-language-kiksht-dies/. 2019-10-10.
- http://news.opb.org/article/last-fluent-speaker-oregon-tribal-language-kiksht-dies/?google_editors_picks=true Last Fluent Speaker of Kiksht Dies
- Web site: Honors Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs elder Gladys Miller Thompson for her contribution to preserving Native languages of Oregon.. 74th OREGON LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY--2007 Regular Session. 2013-02-26.
- News: Zelma Smith, 1926-2010. Spilyay Tymoo, Coyote News, the Newspaper of the Warm Springs Reservation. 2013-02-25.
- News: Keith Chu. New speakers try to save language. The Bulletin. Bend, OR. 2013-02-25. 2006-07-30.
- Web site: Joanne B. Mulcahy. Warm Springs: A Convergence of Cultures. Oregon History Project. 2013-02-26. 2005.
- Web site: Aaron Clark. USA: Tribes Strive to Save Native Tongues. GALDU, Resource Centre for the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. 2013-02-26.
- Web site: Nariyo Kono. Conversational Kiksht. Endangered Languages Archive. 2013-02-25.
- Web site: Holy road: Speaker of Wasco language dead at 91 - Indian Country Media Network. indiancountrymedianetwork.com. en-US. 2017-05-24.
Bibliography
External links
