Tillamook language

Tillamook
Hutyáyu, Hutyéyu
Native to	United States
Region	Northwestern Oregon
Ethnicity	Tillamook, Siletz
Extinct	1972, with the death of Minnie Scovell[1]
Language family	Salishan Coast Salish Tillamook
Dialects	Tillamook Siletz
Language codes
ISO 639-3	til
Glottolog	till1254
Tillamook is classified as Extinct by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger [2]
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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.^[3]

Phonology

Vowels

Vowels in Tillamook^[4][5]

	Front	Central	Back
High	i		u (əɰ)
Mid		ə
Low	e (æ)		a (ɑ)

Consonants

Consonants in Tillamook^[4]

		Alveolar			Post- alveolar	Velar		Uvular		Glottal
		central	lateral	sibilant		unrounded	rounded	unrounded	rounded
Plosive	voiced	d				g	gᶤ	(ɢ)	(ɢᵓ)	ʔ
	aspirate	t				k	kᶤ	q	qᵓ
	tenuis	t˭				k˭	kᶤ˭	q˭	qᵓ˭
Affricate	aspirate			t͡s	t͡ʃ
	tenuis		t͡ɬ˭	t͡s˭	t͡ʃ˭
Fricative			ɬ	s	ʃ	x	xᶤ	χ	χᵓ	h
Sonorant	plain	n	l		j		ɰ
	glottal	ˀn	ˀl		ˀj		ˀɰ

Internal rounding

Tillamook has several phonemic "rounded" velar and uvular consonants, traditionally transcribed with the diacritic ⟨ʷ⟩. However, this is somewhat misleading to the true phonetic articulation of these consonants, as according to Thompson & Thompson, Tillamook lacks labial elements entirely.^[6] Instead, the acoustic quality perceived as labialization is described as an internal rounding created by a "cupping" of the tongue.

This results in uvulars (postvelars) having a [ɔ]-like resonance, while (front) velars exhibit [ɨ] coloring. The chart above uses the ad hoc diacritics ⟨ᵓ⟩ and ⟨ᶤ⟩ to reflect this description and avoid the implication of true labialization. Similarly, the phoneme /w/ is formed with this internal rounding, making it akin to [ɰ]; likewise, the vowel sounds transcribed with the symbols ⟨u u˙ o o˙⟩ are more accurately interpreted as diphthongs with increasing internal rounding, being realizations of the phoneme /əw/ ([əɰ]).^[6]

Notes

1. "A language all but lost". Tilamook Headlight Herald. May 19, 2009. Archived from the original on March 5, 2016.
2. Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger (Report) (3rd ed.). UNESCO. 2010. p. 11.
3. "Speaking Tillamook". Clatsop-Nehalem Confederated Tribes. Archived from the original on June 16, 2011.
4. Egesdal, Steven; Thompson, M. Terry (1996), A Fresh Look at Tillamook Inflectional Morphology (PDF), University of Hawaii, pp. 1–31
5. Thompson & Thompson 1966, p. 318.
6. Thompson & Thompson 1966, p. 316.

Bibliography

• Edel, May M (1939). The Tillamook language. New York: J.J. Augustin. LCCN 40001628. OCLC 10272025.
• "May M. Edel papers". Archives West. April 13, 2018 [2007]. Retrieved June 19, 2024.
• Thompson, Lawrence C.; Thompson, M. Terry (1966). "A Fresh Look at Tillamook Phonology". International Journal of American Linguistics. 32 (4): 313–319. doi:10.1086/464920. JSTOR 1264085. S2CID 145658086.

External links

• University of Oregon: The Tillamook
• Tillamook Language
• "Tillamook Vocabulary". California Language Archive. Retrieved September 22, 2013.
• OLAC resources in and about the Tillamook language