Pre-contact distribution of Chimakuan languages

The Chimakuan language family consists of two languages spoken in northwestern Washington, USA on the Olympic Peninsula. Washington ( is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. Geography The Olympic Peninsula is home to some of the only Temperate rain forests in the world including the Hoh, Queets, and Quinault It is part of the Mosan sprachbund, and one of its languages is famous for having no nasal consonants. A Sprachbund (ˈʃpraːxbʊnt in German plural Sprachbünde) from the German word for “language union” also known as a linguistic area, convergence A nasal consonant (also called nasal stop or nasal continuant) is produced with a lowered velum in the mouth allowing air to escape freely through the The two languages were about as close as English and German. The German language (de ''Deutsch'') is a West Germanic language and one of the world's major languages.

Family division

1. Chemakum (also known as Chimakum or Chimacum) (†)
2. Quileute (also known as Quillayute)

Chemakum is now extinct. The Quileute is a Native American people in western Washington state in the United States, currently numbering approximately 750 According to some definitions an extinct language is a Language which no longer has any speakers, whereas a dead language is a language which is no longer spoken It was spoken until the 1940s on the east side of the Olympic Peninsula between Port Townsend and Hood Canal. Port Townsend is a city in Jefferson County, Washington, United States. Hood Canal is a Fjord off Puget Sound in the US state of Washington. The name Chemakum is an Anglicized version of a Salishan word for the Chemakum people, such as the nearby Twana word čə́bqəb [ʧə́bqəb] (earlier [ʧə́mqəm]). Skokomish, also known as the Twana, are a Native American tribe in western Washington state in the United States.

Quileute is now severely endangered. An endangered language is a Language that it is at risk of falling out of use generally because it has few surviving speakers It is spoken by a few people south of the Makah on the western coast of the Olympic peninsula south of Cape Flattery at La Push and the lower Hoh River. For Ozette in Tales of Symphonia see Tales of Symphonia The Makah (məˈkɑː from the Klallam name for the tribe màq̓áʔa) are a Native American For other uses see Hoh. The Hoh River is located in the Olympic Peninsula in Washington, U The name Quileute comes from kʷoʔlí·yot’ [kʷoʔlíːjot’], the name of a village at La Push.

Phonology

The (pre-)Proto-Chimakuan sound system contained three vowels, long and short, and lexical stress. It had the following consonants.

In Proto-Chimakuan the series [ʧ ʧ’ ʃ] occurred (mostly?) before the vowel /i/. In Phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a Consonant articulated with both Lips The bilabial consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior Alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli (the sockets Palatal consonants are Consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the Hard palate (the middle part of the roof of the mouth Uvulars are Consonants articulated with the back of the Tongue against or near the uvula, that is further back in the mouth than Velar consonants Glottal consonants are Consonants articulated with the Glottis. On the other hand, kʷ kʷ’ xʷ occurred (mostly?) before the vowels /a, o/. These series may have become separate phonemes before Chimakum and Quileute split, but if so, it seems clear that they had been allophones not long before then. In Phonetics, an allophone is one of several similar speech sounds ( Phones that belong to the same Phoneme.

In Quileute the stress became fixed to the penultimate syllable, though subsequent changes made it somewhat unpredictable, and the glottalized sonorants became allophonic with glottal stop-sonorant sequences and so can no longer be considered phonemic. Open syllables developed long vowels. Perhaps as recently as the late 19th century, the nasals /m n m̰ n̰/ became voiced plosives /b d ʔb ʔd/.

In Chemakum, stressed vowels frequently acquired glottal stops; /ʧ ʧ’ ʃ/ depalatalized to /ʦ ʦ’ s/, while /k k’ x/ palatalized to /ʧ ʧ’ ʃ/; sonorants lost their glottalization; and the approximants /j w j̰ w̰/ hardened to /ʧ kʷ/ in the environment of stressed vowels.

Bibilography

• Andrade, Manuel J. (1933). Quileute. New York: Columbia University Press. (Extract from Handbook of American Indian Languages (Vol. 3, pp. 151-292); Andrade's doctoral dissertation).
• Andrade, Manuel J. (1953). Notes on the relations between Chemakum and Quileute. International Journal of American Linguistics, 19, 212-215.
• Andrade, Manuel J. ; & Frachtenberg, Leo J. (1931). Quileute texts. Columbia University contributions to anthropology (Vol. 12). New York: Columbia University Press.
• Boas, Franz. (1892). Notes on the Chemakum language. American Anthropologist, 5, 37-44.
• Campbell, Lyle. (1997). American Indian languages: The historical linguistics of Native America. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-509427-1.
• Mithun, Marianne. (1999). The languages of Native North America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-23228-7 (hbk); ISBN 0-521-29875-X.