ʔayʔaǰuθəm/Saɬuɬtxʷ (Comox/Homalco/Klahoose/Sliammon)

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There is no common name for a collection of several northern Salishan dialects: Comox (on Vancouver Island), Homalco (along Bute Inlet), Klahoose (along Pryce Channel, Homfray Channel, and Toba Inlet), and Sliammon (around Powell Lake).

The writing system presented here is based on a mix of I.P.A. vowels and Americanist tradition consonants. Compared to other Salishan orthographies, the ʔayʔaǰuθəm/Saɬuɬtxʷ vowels are differentiated by their phonetic realisation (as pronounced by the vocal tract) as opposed to their phomemic status (as perceived by the mind). For this reason, the ʔayʔaǰuθəm/Saɬuɬtxʷ phoneme /i/ is written ‹ɛ›, ‹e›, ‹ɩ›, ‹i›, ‹ey› depending on the surrounding consonants. This orthography is currently in use for at least Klahoose and Sliammon.

Note: There are several Roman Orthography conventions on this site that may require further explanation. On the charts below, there is lots of phonetic terminology that may not be familiar to everyone.

The Canadian Census does not count ʔayʔaǰuθəm/Saɬuɬtxʷ speakers separately from other “Salish”. According to Howe and Cook, there are 400 speakers, although there may be no speakers left of Comox.

Community Names:

(coming)

Consonants

	bilabial	inter dental	alveolar	palato-alveolar	lateral	palatalised velar	velar	rounded velar	uvular	rounded uvular	glottal
voiced stop				ǰ		gʸ					ʔ
voiceless stop	p	tᶿ	t	č	ƛ	kʸ	k	kʷ	q	qʷ
ejective stop	p̓	t̓ᶿ	t̓	č̓	ƛ̓	k̓ʸ	k̓	k̓ʷ	q̓	q̓ʷ
voiceless fricative		θ	s	š	ɬ			xʷ	χ	χʷ	h
nasal / resonant	m		n		l	y		w
glottalised nas./res.	m̓		n̓		l̓	y̓		w̓
voiceless nass./res.								w̥

Vowels

	front	central	back
high-tense	i		u
high-lax	ɩ		ʊ
mid-tense	e	ə	o
mid-lax	ɛ		ɔ
low	æ	a

Note:

There are several diphthongs treated as separate letters of the alphabet: aw, ay, əw, əy, ɔy.
Long vowels are written with a following colon.
Stress is indicated with an acúte accent.

Last Update: February 23, 2008