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Lushootseed (also: xʷəlšucid, dxʷləšúcid, Puget Salish, Puget Sound Salish or Skagit-Nisqually) is the language or dialect continuum of several Salish Native American tribes of modern-day Washington state. Lushootseed is one of the Coast Salish languages. The latter is one of two main divisions of the Salishan language family.

Phonology

Lushootseed has a complex consonantal phonology and 4 vowel phonemes. Along with more common voicing and labialization contrasts, Lushootseed has a plain-glottalic contrast, which is realized as laryngealized with sonorants, ejective with voiceless stops or fricatives.

Consonants^[3][4][5]

On a phonetic level, nasals ([m] [m̴] [n] [n̴]) may appear in some speech styles as replacements for stops at the same place of articulation.^[4]

Vowels^[5]

Related languages and current status

Lushootseed, like its neighbour Twana, is in the Southern Coast Salish subgroup of the Salishan family of languages. The language was spoken by many Puget Sound region peoples, including the Duwamish, Steilacoom, Suquamish, Squaxin Island Tribe, Muckleshoot, Snoqualmie, Nisqually, and Puyallup in the south and the Snohomish, Stillaguamish, Skagit, and Swinomish in the north.

Bust of Chief Seattle with accompanying text in Lushootseed: ti šišəgʷł gʷəl al tiʔəʔəxʷ sgʷaʔčᵉł səxʷəsłałlilčəł siʔał dəgʷi gʷəl liiiiləxʷ dʔiišəd cəłul’ul’ cəł ʔəslax̌ədxʷ ti gʷaalapu

Ethnologue quotes a source published in 1990 (and therefore presumably reflecting the situation in the late 1980s), according to which there were 60 fluent speakers of Lushootseed, evenly divided between the northern and southern dialects.^[6] On the other hand, the Ethnologue's list of United States languages also lists, alongside Lushootseed's 60 speakers, 100 speakers for Skagit, 107 for Southern Puget Sound Salish, and 10 for Snohomish (a dialect on the boundary between the northern and southern varieties).^[6] Some sources given for these figures, however, go back to the 1970s when the language was less critically endangered. Linguist Marianne Mithun has collected more recent data on the number of speakers of various Native American languages, and could document that by the end of the 1990s there were only a handful of elders left who spoke Lushootseed fluently. The language was extensively documented and studied by linguists with the aid of tribal elder Vi Hilbert, d. 2008, who was the last speaker with a full native command of Lushootseed.^[1] There are efforts at reviving the language, and instructional materials have been published.

Language revitalization

As of 2013^[update], the Tulalip Tribes' Lushootseed Language Department teaches classes in Lushootseed,^[7][8] and its website offers a Lushootseed "phrase of the week" with audio.^[9] The Tulalip Montessori School also teaches Lushootseed to young children.^[10]

Wa He Lut Indian School teaches Lushootseed to Native elementary school children in their Native Language and Culture program.

As of 2013^[update], an annual Lushootseed conference is held at Seattle University.^[11] A course in Lushootseed language and literature has been offered at Evergreen State College.^[12]
Lushootseed has also been used as a part of environmental history courses at Pacific Lutheran University.^[1] It has been spoken during the annual Tribal Canoe Journey (Tribal Journeys) that take place throughout the Salish Sea.

There are also efforts within the Puyallup Tribe. Their website and social media, aimed at anyone interested in learning the language, are updated often.^[13]

In the summer of 2016, the first ever adult immersion program in Lushootseed was offered at the University of Washington's Tacoma campus. It was sponsored by The Puyallup Tribal Language Program in partnership with University of Washington Tacoma and its School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences.^[14] A similar program will be offered in 2017, with the instructors Danica Sterud Miller, Assistant Professor of American Indian Studies at the University of Washington Tacoma, and Zalmai Zahir, a PhD student of theoretical linguistics at the University of Oregon.^[15]

Subdivisions

Lushootseed consists of two dialect groups which can be further divided into subdialects:

• 
  Northern Lushootseed or Lushootseed (Northern Puget Sound Salish)
  
  • 
    Snohomish (Sdoh-doh-hohbsh or Sdohobich) (spoke the Sduhubš / Snohomish dialect, a transitional dialect between Northern and Southern Lushootseed; today as part of the Tulalip Tribes of Washington they developed the dxʷləšucid or Tulalip Lushootseed dialect)
  
  
  • 
    Stillaguamish (Stoluck-wa-mish River Tribe) (spoke a separate dialect; today many are part of the Tulalip Tribes of Washington and developed the dxʷləšucid or Tulalip Lushootseed dialect)
  
  
  • 
    Skagit, Skaǰət-Swinomish or Lower Skagit-Swinomish dialects
    
    • 
      Lower Skagit (Whidbey Island Skagit) (on Skagit River and on Whidbey Island, subdialect of Skaǰət-Swinomish)
    
    
    • 
      Upper Skagit^[16] (along upper Skagit River, subdialect of Skaǰət-Swinomish)
    
    
    • 
      Swinomish (at the mouth of Skagit Rivers and northern part of Whidbey Island, sometimes considered a Lower Skagit band, subdialect of Skaǰət-Swinomish)
    
    
    • Kikiallus (Ki Ki Allus or Kikyalus) (between Lower Skagit and Swinomish lands, sometimes considered a Lower Skagit band, Kikiallus subdialect of Skaǰət-Swinomish)
    
    
  
  
  • 
    Sauk-Suiattle (Sah-Ku-Me-Hu) (on Sauk River and Suiattle River, Suiʼaẋbixʷ or Sauk-Suiattle dialect)
  
  


• 
  Southern Lushootseed or Whulshootseed / Twulshootseed (Southern Puget Sound Salish)
  
  • 
    Skykomish (Skai-whamish) (originally considered a subdivision of the Snoqualmies,
  
  
  • 
    Snoqualmie (S·dukʷalbixʷ / Sduqwalbixw) (along Tolt River and Snoqualmie River, spoke the Sduqʷalbixʷ or Snoqualmie subdialect, often grouped as Txʷǝlšucid or Twulshootseed local dialect)
  
  
  • Steilacoom
  
  
  • Suquamish
  
  
  • Duwamish
  
  
  • 
    Muckleshoot (bǝqǝlšuɫucid) (on Green and White rivers)
  
  
  • 
    Puyallup (Spuyaləpabš or S’Puyalupubsh) (lived throughout the river basin of the Puyallup River, at Gig Harbor and Wollochet Bay and on Vashon Island, spoke the Txʷǝlšucid or Twulshootseed local dialect)
  
  
  • 
    Nisqually ('Susqually'absh or sq̓ʷaliʼabš)
  
  
  • Sahewamish
  
  
  • 
    Snohomish (Sdoh-doh-hohbsh) (around the Puget Sound area of Washington, north of Seattle)
  
  
  • Squaxin Island Tribe
  
  

Alphabet

According to work published by Vi Hilbert and other Lushootseed language specialists, Lushootseed uses a morphophonemic writing system meaning that it is a phonemic alphabet which changes to reflect the pronunciation such as when an affix is introduced. The chart below is based on the Lushootseed Dictionary. Typographic variations such as p' and p̓ do not indicate phonemic distinctions.

Some vocabulary

The Lushootseed language originates from the coastal region of Northwest Washington State and the Southwest coast of Canada. There are words in the Lushootseed language which are related to the environment and the fishing economy that surrounded the Salish tribes. The following tables show different words from different Lushootseed dialects relating to the salmon fishing and coastal economies.

References

Language learning materials

• Bates, D., Hess, T., & Hilbert, V. (1994). Lushootseed dictionary. Seattle: University of Washington Press.
  ISBN 9780295973234
  


• Beck, David. "Transitivity and causation in Lushootseed morphology." Working Papers of the Linguistics Circle 13 (1996): 11-20.


• 
  Browner, Tara (2009). Music of the First Nations: Tradition and Innovation in Native North America. University of Illinois Press. pp. 35–36.
  


• 
  Indiana University, Bloomington (1996). Lushootseed texts: an introduction to Puget Salish narrative aesthetics. Studies in the anthropology of North American Indians. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press in cooperation with the American Indian Studies Research Institute, Indiana University, Bloomington. ISBN 0803212623.
  


• Chamberlain, Rebecca, Lushootseed Language & Literature: Program reader. (Lushootseed language, cultural, and storytelling traditions.)


• 
  Hess, Thom (1995). Lushootseed reader. University of Montana occasional papers in linguistics. S.l.: Tulalip Tribes. ISBN 1879763141.
  


• Hess, Thom and Vi Hilbert. Lushootseed Book 1; The language of the Skagit, Nisqually, and other tribes of Puget Sound. An Introduction. Lushootseed Press 1995


• Hess, Thom and Vi Hilbert. Lushootseed Book 2 (Advanced Lushootseed). Lushootseed Press, 1995


• 
  Hess, Thom (1995). Lushootseed Reader with Introductory Grammar. Missoula: University of Montana. ISBN 1879763117.
  


• Hilbert, Vi. Haboo: Native American Stories from Puget Sound. Seattle: University of Washington, 1985


• Hilbert, Vi, Crisca Bierwest, Thom Hess. Way of the Lushootseed People; Ceremonies & Traditions of North Puget Sound's First People. Third Edition, Lushootseed Press, 2001


• 
  dxʷlešucid xʷgʷədgʷatəd tul̓ʔal taqʷšəblu; Some Lushootseed Vocabulary from taqʷšəblu. Lushootseed Press, 1993

External links

For a list of words relating to Lushootseed, see the Lushootseed category of words in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Puyallup Tribal Language Program


• The Tulalip Lushootseed Department's Website


• 
  History professor helps keep local Native American language alive by Drew Brown for PLU Scene Magazine


• Lushootseed Peoples of Puget Sound Country


• Lushootseed Research


• Dr. David Beck, Salishan Language specialist


• Developing a corpus for Lushootseed