Colville-Okanagan language

Colville-Okanagan
nsəlxcin
Spoken in	Canada, United States of America
Region	Southern Interior of British Columbia, Central-northern State of Washington
Ethnicity	Okanagan people, Colville tribe
Native speakers	150  (date missing)
Language family	Salishan Interior Salish Southern Interior Salish Colville-Okanagan
Language codes
ISO 639-3	oka

Colville-Okanagan is a Salish language which arose among the inhabitants of the Okanagan River Basin and spread into the Columbia River Basin. 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 fluent speakers younger than 50 years of age. Colville-Okanagan is the second most spoken Salish language after Shuswap.

History and Description

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 Roman script using the American Phonetic Alphabet.

In Colville-Okanagan the language itself is known as nsəlxcin or nsyilxcn. Speakers of nsəlxcin occupied the northern portion of the Columbia Basin from the Methow River in the west, to Kootenay Lake in the east, and north along the Columbia River and the Arrow Lakes. Colville-Okanagan is the heritage language of the Lower Similkameen Indian Band, the Upper Similkameen Indian Band, the Westbank First Nation, the Osoyoos Indian Band, the Penticton Indian Band, the Okanagan Indian Band, the Upper Nicola Indian Band, and the Colville, Sanpoil, Okanogan, Lakes, Nespelem and Methow bands of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation. In Colville-Okanagan all nsyilxcn speaking bands are grouped under the ethnic label syilx. Four non-profit organizations which support Colville-Okanagan language acquisition and revitalization are the Paul Creek Language Association in Keremeos BC, the En'owkin Centre in Penticton BC, the Waterfalls Immersion School in Omak WA, as well as the Salish School of Spokane in Spokane WA.

Okanagan is reported to contain the rare uvular flap.^[1]

See also

• Okanagan Nation Alliance

References

1. ^ "Uvular-Pharyngeal Resonants in Interior Salish." M. Dale Kinkade. International Journal of American Linguistics, Vol. 33, No. 3 (Jul., 1967), pp. 228–234

Bibliography

Language Learning

• Peterson, Wiley, and Parkin. (2004). Nsəlxcin 1: A Beginning Course in Colville-Okanagan Salish. The Paul Creek Language Association.
• Peterson, Wiley, and Parkin. (2005) Captíkʷł 1: Nsəlxcin Stories for Beginners. The Paul Creek Language Association.
• Peterson and Parkin. (2007) Nsəlxcin 2: An Intermediate Course in Okanagan Salish. The Paul Creek Language Association.
• Peterson and Parkin. (2007) Captíkʷł 2: More Nsəlxcin Stories for Beginners. The Paul Creek Language Association.
• Peterson and Parkin. (In Press) Nsəlxcin 3. The Paul Creek Language Association.
• Peterson and Parkin. (In Press) Captíkʷł 3. The Paul Creek Language Association.
• Manuel, Herbert, and Anthony Mattina. (1983). Okanagan Pronunciation Primer. University of Montana Linguistics Laboratory.

Narratives, Dictionaries, and Word Lists

• Doak, Ivy G. (1983). The 1908 Okanagan Word Lists of James Teit. Missoula, Montana: Dept. of Anthropology, University of Montana, 1983.
• Mattina, Anthony and Madeline DeSautel. (2002). Dora Noyes DeSautel łaʔ kłcaptikʷł: Okanagan Salish Narratives. University of Montana Occasional Papers in Linguistics 15.
• Seymour, Peter, Madeline DeSautel, and Anthony Mattina. (1985). The Golden Woman: The Colville Narrative of Peter J. Seymour. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
• Seymour, Peter, Madeline DeSautel, and Anthony Mattina. (1974). The Narrative of Peter J. Seymour Blue Jay and His Brother-In-Law Wolf.
• Mattina, Anthony. Colville-Okanagan Dictionary. Missoula, Mont: Dept. of Anthropology, University of Montana, 1987.
• Pierre, Larry and Martin Louie. (1973). Classified Word List for the Okanagan Language. MS, Penticton, B.C.
• Purl, Douglas. (1974). The Narrative of Peter J. Seymour: Blue Jay and Wolf. ICSL 9, Vancouver, B.C.
• Somday, James B. (1980). Colville Indian Language Dictionary. Ed.D. dissertation, University of North Dakota, Grand Forks. DAI 41A:1048.

Linguistic Descriptions and Reviews

• Arrowsmith, Gary L. (1968). Colville Phonemics. M.A. thesis, University of Washington, Seattle.
• Baptiste, M. 2002. Wh-Questions in Okanagan Salish. M.A. thesis, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C.
• Barthmaier, Paul. (2004). Intonation Units in Okanagan. Pp. 30–42 of Gerdts and Matthewson (eds.) 2004.
• Barthmaier, Paul. (2002). Transitivity and Lexical Suffixes in Okanagan. Papers for ICSNL 37 (Gillon, C., N. Sawai, and R. Wojdak, eds.). UBCWPL 9:1–17.
• Charlie, William M., Clara Jack, and Anthony Mattina. (1988). William Charlie’s “Two-Headed Person”: Preliminary Notes on Colville-Okanagan Oratory. ICSNL 23(s.p.), Eugene, Oregon.
• Dilts, Philip. (2006.) An Analysis of the Okanagan “middle” marker -M. Papers for ICSNL 41 (Kiyota, M., J. Thompson, and N. Yamane-Tanaka, eds.). UBCWPL 11:77–98.
• Doak, Ivy G. (1981). A Note on Plural Suppletion in Colville Okanagan. Pp. 143–147 of (Anthony) Mattina and Montler (eds.) 1981.
• Doak, Ivy G. (2004). [Review of Dora Noyes DeSautel ła’ kłcaptíkwł ([Anthony] Mattina and DeSautel [eds.] 2002.] AL 46:220–222.
• Doak, Ivy, and Anthony Mattina. (1997). Okanagan -lx, Coeur d’Alene -lš, and Cognate Forms. IJAL 63:334–361.
• Fleisher, Mark S. (1979). A Note on Schuhmacher’s Inference of wahú’ in Colville Salish. IJAL 45:279–280.
• Galloway, Brent D. (1991). [Review of Colville-Okanagan Dictionary ([Anthony] Mattina 1987).] IJAL 57:402–405.
• Harrington, John P. (1942). Lummi and Nespelem Fieldnotes. Microfilm, reel No. 015, remaining data as per Harrington 1910.
• Hébert, Yvonne M. (1978). Sandhi in a Salishan Language: Okanagan. ICSL 13:26–56, Victoria, B.C.
• Hébert, Yvonne M. (1979). A Note on Aspect in (Nicola Lake) Okanagan. ICSL 14:173–209, Bellingham, Washington.
• Hébert, Yvonne M. (1982a). Transitivity in (Nicola Lake) Okanagan. Ph.D. dissertation, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C. DAI 43A:3896.
• Hébert, Yvonne M. (1982b). Aspect and Transitivity in (Nicola Lake) Okanagan. Syntax and Semantics 15:195–215.
• Hébert, Yvonne M. (1983). Noun and Verb in a Salishan Language. KWPL 8:31–81.
• Hill-Tout, Charles. (1911). Report on the Ethnology of the Okanák.ēn of British Columbia, an Interior Division of the Salish Stock. JAIGBI 41:130–161. London.
• Kennedy, Dorothy I. D., and Randall T. [Randy] Bouchard. (1998). ‘Northern Okanagan, Lakes, and Colville.’ Pp. 238–252 of Walker, Jr. (vol. ed.) 1998.
• Kinkade, M. Dale. (1967). On the Identification of the Methows (Salish). IJAL 33:193–197.
• Kinkade, M. Dale. (1987). [Review of The Golden Woman: The Colville Narrative of Peter J. Seymour (Mattina 1985).] Western Folklore 46:213–214.
• Kroeber, Karl, and Eric P. Hamp. (1989). [Review of The Golden Woman: The Colville Narrative of Peter J. Seymour (Mattina, ed.).] IJAL 55:94–97.
• Krueger, John R. (1967). Miscellanea Selica V: English-Salish Index and Finder List. AL 9(2):12–25.

• Mattina, Anthony and Clara Jack. (1982). Okanagan Communication and Language. ICSNL 17:269–294, Portland, Oregon.
• Mattina, Anthony and Clara Jack. (1986). Okanagan-Colville Kinship Terms. ICSNL 21:339–346, Seattle, Washington. [Published as Mattina and Jack 1992.]
• Mattina, Anthony and Nancy J. Mattina. (1995). Okanagan ks- and -kł. ICSNL 30, Victoria, B.C.
• Mattina, Anthony and Sarah Peterson. (1997). Diminutives in Colville-Okanagan. ICSNL 32:317–324, Port Angeles, Washington.
• Mattina, Anthony and Allan Taylor. (1984). The Salish Vocabularies of David Thompson. IJAL 50:48–83.
• Mattina, Nancy J. (1993). Some Lexical Properties of Colville-Okanagan Ditransitives. ICSNL 28:265–284, Seattle, Washington.
• Mattina, Nancy J. (1994a). Roots, Bases, and Stems in Colville-Okanagan. ICSNL 29, Pablo, Montana.
• Mattina, Nancy J. (1994b). Argument Structure of Nouns, Nominalizations, and Denominals in Okanagan Salish. Paper presented at the 2nd Annual University of Victoria Salish Morphosyntax Workshop, Victoria, B.C.
• Mattina, Nancy J. (1994c). Notes on Word Order in Colville-Okanagan Salish. NWLC 10:93–102. Burnaby, B.C.: Simon Fraser University.
• Mattina, Nancy J. (1996a). Aspect and Category in Okanagan Word Formation. Ottawa: National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1997. ISBN 061217011X
• Mattina, Nancy J. (1996b). Anticausatives in Okanagan. Paper presented at the 4th Annual University of Victoria Salish Morphosyntax, Victoria, B.C.
• Mattina, Nancy J. (1999a). Future in Colville-Okanagan Salish. ICSNL 34:215–230, Kamloops, B.C. [Note also (Nancy) Mattina 1999c.]
• Mattina, Nancy J. (1999b). Toward a History of the Inflectional Future in Colville-Okanagan Salish. University of California Santa Barbara Occasional Papers in Linguistics 17:27–42. Santa Barbara: University of California Santa Barbara.
• Mattina, Nancy J. (2004). smiyáw sucnmínctәxw: Coyote Proposes. Pp. 289–299 of Gerdts and Matthewson (eds.) 2004.
• O’Brien, Michael. (1967). A Phonology of Methow. ICSL 2, Seattle, Washington.
• Pattison, Lois C. (1978). Douglas Lake Okanagan: Phonology and Morphology. M.A. thesis, University of British Columbia.
• Petersen, Janet E. (1980). Colville Lexical Suffixes and Comparative Notes. MS.
• Ray, Verne F. (1932). The Sanpoil and Nespelem: Salish Peoples of Northwestern Washington. UWPA 5. Seattle.
• Schuhmacher, W. W. (1977). The Colville Name for Hawaii. IJAL 43:65–66.
• Spier, Leslie. (1938). The Sinkaietk or Southern Okanagan of Washington. General Series in Anthropology, no. 6. Menasha, Wisconsin: George Banta Publishing.
• Turner, Nancy J., Randy Bouchard, and Dorothy D. Kennedy. (1980). Ethnobotany of the Okanagan-Colville Indians of British Columbia and Washington. Occasional Paper Series 21. Victoria: British Columbia Provincial Museum.
• Vogt, Hans. (1940). Salishan Studies. Comparative Notes on Kalispel, Spokan, Colville and Coeur d’Alene. Oslo: Skrifter utgitt av Det Norske Videnskaps-Akademi i Oslo, II, Hist.-filos. Klasse, No. 2, Jacob Dybwad.
• Watkins, Donald. (1972). A Description of the Phonemes and Position Classes in the Morphology of Head of the Lake Okanagan. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Alberta, Edmonton.
• Watkins, Donald. (1974). A Boas original. IJAL 40:29–43.
• Young, Philip. (1971). A Phonology of Okanogan. M.A. thesis, University of Kansas.

External links

• Colville-Okanagan language at Ethnologue
• Colville-Okanagan language at LINGUIST List
• First Nations Languages of British Columbia entry
• Map of Northwest Coast First Nations
• Vocabulary Words in Okanagan-Colville
• Salish School of Spokane
• En'owkin Centre
• Interior Salish