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Colville-Okanagan language

Okanagan
Colville
n̓səl̓xcin
Native to Canada, United States
Region Southern Interior of British Columbia, Central-northern State of Washington
Ethnicity Okanagan, Colville, Lakes, Methow
Native speakers
600 (2007–2014)
2,000 L2 speakers (2007)
figure for US perhaps exaggerated
salishan
Dialects
  • Northern Okanagan
  • Colville (n̓x̌ʷʔiłpcən)
  • Lakes (Sinixt)
  • San-poil (Nespelem)
  • Southern Okanagan
  • Methow
Language codes
ISO 639-3
Glottolog okan1243

Okanagan, or Colville-Okanagan, is a Salish language which arose among the indigenous peoples of the southern Interior Plateau region based primarily in the Okanagan River Basin and the Columbia River Basin in pre-colonial times in Canada and the United States. Following British, American, and Canadian colonization during the 1800s and the subsequent repression of all Salishan languages, the use of Colville-Okanagan declined drastically.

Colville-Okanagan is highly endangered and is rarely learned as either a first or second language. There are about 150 deeply fluent speakers of Colville-Okanagan Salish, the majority of whom live in British Columbia. The language is currently moribund and has no first language speakers younger than 50 years of age. Colville-Okanagan is the second most spoken Salish language after Shuswap.

Historically, Colville-Okanagan originated from a language which was spoken in the Columbia River Basin and is now termed Proto Southern Interior Salish. As a result of the initial expansion of Colville-Okanagan prior to European contact, the language developed three separate dialects: Colville, Okanagan, and Lakes. There is a low degree of dialectic divergence in terms of vocabulary and grammar. Variation is primarily confined to pronunciation.

The vast majority of Colville-Okanagan words are from Proto-Salish or Proto-Interior Salish. A number of Colville-Okanagan words are shared with or borrowed from the neighboring Salish, Sahaptian, and Kutenai languages. More recent word borrowings are from English and French. Colville-Okanagan was an exclusively oral form of communication until the late 19th century when priests and linguists began transcribing the language for word lists, dictionaries, grammars, and translations. Colville-Okanagan is currently written in Latin script using the American Phonetic Alphabet.


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Wikipedia

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