Oowekyala | |
Nativename: | ’Wuik̓ala |
Region: | Northern Central Coast Regional District, British Columbia, Canada |
Ethnicity: | Wuikinuxv people |
Speakers: | 6 |
Date: | 2014, FPCC |
Familycolor: | American |
Fam1: | Wakashan |
Fam2: | Northern |
Fam3: | Heiltsuk–Oowekyala |
Isoexception: | dialect |
Glotto: | oowe1239 |
Glottorefname: | Ooweekeeno |
Oowekyala,[1] also Ooweekeeno and ’Wuik̓ala in the language itself, is a dialect (or a sublanguage) of Heiltsuk–Oowekyala, a Northern Wakashan language spoken around Rivers Inlet and Owikeno Lake in the Central Coast region of the Canadian province of British Columbia, spoken by the Wuikinuxv, whose government is the Wuikinuxv Nation.
The name is also spelled Wuikala, Wuikenukv, Oweekeno, Wikeno, Owikeno, Oowekeeno, Oweekano, Awikenox, Oowek'yala, Oweek'ala.
The 45 consonants of Oowekyala:
Labial | Alveolar | Velar | Uvular | Glottal | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
central | lateral | sibilant | plain | labial | plain | labial | ||||
Plosive | voiced | pronounced as /b/ | pronounced as /d/ | pronounced as /d͡l/[2] | pronounced as /d͡z/ | pronounced as /ɡ/ | pronounced as /ɡʷ/ | pronounced as /ɢ/ | pronounced as /ɢʷ/ | |
voiceless | pronounced as /p/ | pronounced as /t/ | pronounced as /t͡ɬ/ | pronounced as /t͡s/ | pronounced as /k/ | pronounced as /kʷ/ | pronounced as /q/ | pronounced as /qʷ/ | ||
ejective | pronounced as /pʼ/ | pronounced as /tʼ/ | pronounced as /t͡ɬʼ/ | pronounced as /t͡sʼ/ | pronounced as /kʼ/ | pronounced as /kʷʼ/ | pronounced as /qʼ/ | pronounced as /qʷʼ/ | ||
Fricative | pronounced as /ɬ/ | pronounced as /s/ | pronounced as /x/ | pronounced as /xʷ/ | pronounced as /χ/ | pronounced as /χʷ/ | ||||
Sonorant | short | pronounced as /m/ | pronounced as /n/ | pronounced as /l/ | pronounced as /j/ | pronounced as /w/ | pronounced as /ɦ/ | |||
long | pronounced as /mː/ | pronounced as /nː/ | pronounced as /lː/ | |||||||
glottalized | pronounced as /mˀ/ | pronounced as /nˀ/ | pronounced as /lˀ/ | pronounced as /jˀ/ | pronounced as /wˀ/ | pronounced as /ʔ/ |
Phonologically, affricates are treated as stops, and nasals and approximants are treated as sonorants. Additionally, pronounced as //ɦ// and pronounced as //ʔ// are treated as sonorants.
Oowekyala has phonemic short, long, and glottalized vowels:
Front | Central | Back | ||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
short | long | glottalized | short | long | glottalized | short | long | glottalized | ||
Close | pronounced as /i/ | pronounced as /iː/ | pronounced as /iˀ/ | pronounced as /u/ | pronounced as /uː/ | pronounced as /uˀ/ | ||||
Mid | pronounced as /ə/ | |||||||||
Open | pronounced as /a/ | pronounced as /aː/ | pronounced as /aˀ/ |
Oowekyala, like Nuxálk (Bella Coola), allows long sequences of obstruents, as in the following 7-obstruent word:
pronounced as /[t͡sʼkʷʼχtʰt͡ɬʰkʰt͡sʰ]/ 'the invisible one here-with-me will be short' (Howe 2000: 5)
[kxlqs{{IPA|ɬ}}{{IPA|t͡s}}{{IPA|xʷ}}] kxlqsłcxv - you struck a match for me [3]