| Saanich | |
| Nativename: | SENĆOŦEN, Sənčáθən |
| States: | Canada, United States |
| Region: | British Columbia, Washington |
| Speakers: | ca. 5 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| Ref: | [1] |
| Familycolor: | American |
| Fam1: | Salishan |
| Fam2: | Coast |
| Fam3: | Central |
| Fam4: | Salishan |
| Fam5: | North Straits |
| Script: | SENĆOŦEN Sometimes NAPA |
| Nation: | Pauquachin Tsawout Tsartlip Tseycum |
| Iso3: | none |
| Isoexception: | dialect |
| Glotto: | saan1246 |
| Glottorefname: | Saanich |
| Notice: | IPA |
| Map: | North Straits Salish map.svg |
| Pronunciation: | pronounced as /[sənˈt͡ʃɑs̪ən]/ |
| Iso3comment: | (covered in [str] Straits Salish) |
Saanich (also Sənčáθən, written as SENĆOŦEN in Saanich orthography and pronounced pronounced as /sənˈt͡ʃɑs̪ən/) is the language of the First Nations Saanich people in the Pacific Northwest region of northwestern North America. Saanich is a Coast Salishan language in the Northern Straits dialect continuum, the varieties of which are closely related to the Klallam language.
"The [[Saanich people|W̱SÁNEĆ]] School Board, together with the FirstVoices program for revitalizing Aboriginal languages, is working to teach a new generation to speak SENĆOŦEN" at the ȽÁU,WELṈEW̱ Tribal School.[5] [6]
A Saanich texting app was released in 2012.[7] A SENĆOŦEN iPhone app was released in October 2011.[8] An online dictionary, phrasebook, and language learning portal is available at the First Voices SENĆOŦEN Community Portal.[9]
Saanich has no rounded vowels in native vocabulary. As in many languages, vowels are strongly affected by post-velar consonants.
| Type | Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| High | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||
| Mid | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||
| Low | pronounced as /link/ |
The following table includes all the sounds found in the North Straits dialects. No one dialect includes them all. Plosives are not aspirated, but are not voiced either. Ejectives have weak glottalization.
| Type | Bilabial | Dental | Alveolar | Post- alveolar | Pre-velar | Post-velar | Glottal | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| plain | sibilant | lateral | plain | rounded | plain | rounded | ||||||
| Stop | plain | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||
| glottalized | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | |||
| Fricative | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||||
| Sonorant | plain | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | |||||
| glottalized | pronounced as /mˀ/ | pronounced as /nˀ/ | pronounced as /lˀ/ | pronounced as /jˀ/ | pronounced as /wˀ/ | pronounced as /ŋ̠ˀ/ | ||||||
The dentals are often written (IPA|θ), (IPA|tθʼ), but this is inaccurate, as they are laminal sibilants, pronounced as /[s̻, ts̻]/, and are only rarely interdental. The alveolars pronounced as //s, ts, tsʼ//, on the other hand, are apical, as are all alveolars, including the laterals. The post-velars are often written (IPA|q), (IPA|χ), etc., but are not actually uvular.
Saanich stress is phonemic. Each full word has one stressed syllable, either in the root or in a suffix, the position of which is lexically determined. "Secondary stress" is sometimes described, but this is merely a way of distinguishing lexical schwas (with "secondary stress", like all other vowels in a word) from epenthetic schwas ("unstressed").
| Saanich alphabet | |
| Also Known As: | SENĆOŦEN Sənčáθən |
| Type: | Alphabet |
| Languages: | North Straits Salish language Saanich language |
| Time: | 1978 to present |
| Fam1: | (Proto-writing) |
| Fam6: | Old Italic script |
| Fam7: | Latin alphabet |
| Fam8: | English alphabet |
| Unicode: | U+0000 to U+007E Basic Latin and punctuation |
| Iso15924: | Latn |
The Saanich orthography was created by Dave Elliott in 1978, by using a typewriter to combine Latin characters with other marks to create new characters.[10] It is a unicase alphabet, using only uppercase letters with the single exception of a lower-case s for the third person possessive suffix.[11]
| A | B | C | D | E | H | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| pronounced as //e// | pronounced as //ej// | pronounced as //pʼ// | pronounced as //k̟// | pronounced as //tʃ// | pronounced as //k̟ʷ// | pronounced as //tʼ// | pronounced as //ə// | pronounced as //h// | |
| I | J | K | ₭ | L | M | ||||
| pronounced as //i// | pronounced as //əj//, pronounced as //ɑj// | pronounced as //tʃʼ// | pronounced as //k̠ʼ// | pronounced as //k̠ʷʼ// | pronounced as //k̠// | pronounced as //k̠ʷ// | pronounced as //l//, pronounced as //lˀ// | pronounced as //ɬ// | pronounced as //m//, pronounced as //mˀ// |
| N | O | P | Q | S | T | Ṯ | |||
| pronounced as //n//, pronounced as //nˀ// | pronounced as //ŋ̠//, pronounced as //ŋ̠ˀ// | pronounced as //ɑ// | pronounced as //p// | pronounced as //k̟ʷʼ// | pronounced as //s// | pronounced as //ʃ// | pronounced as //t// | pronounced as //t̪s̪ʼ// | pronounced as //tɬʼ// |
| U | W | W̱ | X | X̱ | Y | Z | s | ||
| pronounced as //s̪// | pronounced as //əw//, pronounced as //u// | pronounced as //w// | pronounced as //x̟ʷ// | pronounced as //x̠// | pronounced as //x̠ʷ// | pronounced as //j//, pronounced as //jˀ// | pronounced as //ts// | pronounced as //-s// | |
The glottal stop pronounced as //ʔ// is not always indicated, but may be written with a spacing cedilla: ¸, or less formally with a comma: ,. When distinguished, the glottalized resonants are (L¸ M¸ N¸ Ṉ¸ U¸ Y¸).
The vowel pronounced as //e// is usually written Á, unless it occurs next to a post-velar consonant (pronounced as //k̠ k̠ʷ k̠ʼ k̠ʷʼ x̠ x̠ʷ ŋ̠ ŋ̠ʷ//), where it is written A.
Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
| Saanich: | ||
|---|---|---|
| IPA: | /əwənə sen ə ts̪ə əwʔ mək̟ʷʼ əɬtelŋəx̟ʷ k̟ʷ sniʔs sk̟ʷʼɑjəs̪ ə ts̪ə x̠t͡ʃŋins. əwʔ x̠ənənək̟ʷəl ts̪ə əwʔ mək̟ʷʼ əɬtelŋəx̟ʷ k̟ʷ siʔemʔtəŋs. t͡ʃʃk̠ʷelək̟ʷen ts̪ə əwʔ mək̟ʷʼ sen. əjʔ k̟ʷ sʔeʔiteŋs ts̪ə əwʔ mek̟ʷʼ sen x̠ʷənʔiŋ ə ts̪ə st͡ʃeʔt͡ʃəʔs/ | |
| English original: | "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood." |
In Saanich, metathesis is used as a grammatical device to indicate "actual" aspect. The actual aspect is most often translated into English as a be …-ing progressive. The actual aspect is derived from the "nonactual" verb form by a CV → VC metathesis process (i.e. consonant metathesizes with vowel).
| ŦX̲ÉT 'shove' (nonactual) | → | ŦÉX̲T 'shoving' (actual) | |
| ṮPÉX̲ 'scatter' (nonactual) | → | ṮÉPX̲ 'scattering' (actual) | |
| ȾȽÉQ 'pinch' (nonactual) | → | ȾÉȽQ 'pinching' (actual) |