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Lillooet language

Lillooet
St’át’imcets / St̓át̓imcets
Native to Canada
Region British Columbia
Ethnicity 6,670 St’át’imc (2014, FPCC)
Native speakers
140 (2014, FPCC)
Salishan
Language codes
ISO 639-3
Glottolog lill1248
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters.

Lillooet /ˈlɪlɛt/, also known as St’át’imcets ([ˈst͡ɬʼæt͡ɬʼemxət͡ʃ]), is the Interior Salishan language of the St’át’imc, spoken in southern British Columbia, Canada, around the middle Fraser and Lillooet Rivers. The language of the Lower Lillooet people uses the name Ucwalmícwts, because St’át’imcets means "the language of the people of Sat’", i.e. the Upper Lillooet of the Fraser River.

Lillooet is an endangered language with as few as 200 native speakers practically all of whom are over 60 years of age (Gordon 2005).

St'at'imcets has two main dialects:

Upper St'at'imcets is spoken around Fountain, Pavilion, Lillooet, and neighboring areas. Lower St'at'imcets is spoken around Mount Currie and neighboring areas. An additional subdialect called Skookumchuck is spoken within the Lower St'at'imcets dialect area, but there is no information available in van Eijk (1981, 1997) (which are the main references for this article). A common usage used by the bands of the Lower Lillooet River below Lillooet Lake is Ucwalmicwts.

The "Clao7alcw" (Raven's Nest) language nest program at Mount Currie, home of the Lil’wat, is conducted in the Lil’wat language."


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