Ucwalmícwts / St̓át̓imcets / Sƛ’aƛ’imxǝc (Lillooet)

Please download a Languagegeek.com font to view these pages properly.

St̓át̓imcets Keyboards are available

Text Example

The St̓át̓imcets language (Ucwalmícwts) is spoken in the Interior of British Columbia, just north-east of Vancouver along the Frazer River. Please contact me if there are any mistakes or omissions on these pages.

There are two practical writing systems presented below. The first is that used by the Mount Currie School and the Lillooet Council, the second is a modification of that which was developed by Bouchard, and resembles his scripts for other B.C. languages. Both tables are derived from van Eijk, which give a different list of phonemes (sounds) than the Handbook; I will follow van Eijk’s analysis here. Each orthography may be official in different communities.

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 in 2016 counts 790 St̓át̓imcets speakers. According to Howe and Cook, there are 200 speakers.

Mount Currie / Lillooet Council Orthography – Consonants

	bilabial	alveolar	alveolar affricate	retracted alveolar affricate	lateral	retracted lateral	palatal	velar	rounded velar	uvular	rounded uvular	glottal
voiceless stop	p	t	c	c̣				k	kʷ	q	qʷ	ʔ
ejective stop	p’		c’		ƛ’			k’	k’ʷ	q’	q’ʷ
voiceless fricative			s	ṣ	ɬ			x	xʷ	x̌	x̌ʷ	h
nasal / resonant	m	n	z		l	ḷ	y	ɣ	w	ʕ	ʕʷ
glottalised n / r	m’	n’	z’		l’	ḷ’	y’	ɣ’	w’	ʕ’	ʕ’ʷ

Mount Currie / Lillooet Council Orthography – Vowels

	front	front retracted	central	central retracted	back	back retracted
high	i	ị			u	ụ
mid			ǝ	ǝ̣
low			a	ạ

Notes

Stress is marked by an acute accent, á ạ́ ǝ́ ǝ̣́ í ị́ ú ụ́
The glottal stop ‹ʔ› is written at the beginning of words.

Bouchard Orthography – Consonants

	bilabial	alveolar	alveolar affricate	retracted alveolar affricate	lateral	retracted lateral	palatal	velar	rounded velar	uvular	rounded uvular	glottal
voiceless stop	p	t	ts	ṯs̱				k	kw	q	qw	7
ejective stop	p̓		ts̓		t̓			k̓	k̓w	q̓	q̓w
voiceless fricative			s	s̱	lh			c	cw	x	xw	h
nasal / resonant	m	n	z		l	ḻ	y	r	w	g	gw
glottalised n / r	m̓	n̓	z̓		l̓	ḻ̓	y̓	r̓	w̓	g̓	g̓w

Bouchard Orthography – Vowels

	front	front retracted	central	central retracted	back	back retracted
high	i	ii			u	o
mid			e	v
low			a	ao

Notes

Acute stress accents fall on the first vowel of a digraph, so stressed ‹ii› is ‹íi›.
I have seen the glottal stop ‹⁷› as a superscript when lowercase and identical to the numeral ‹7› when uppercase. It may or may not be written at the beginning of words.
A vowel before the glottal stop ‹7› and a uvular is written as retracted.
The lateral ejective is written ‹t̓› instead of ‹tl̓› for the sake of economy, as there is no /t̓/ or /tl/ to cause confusion.

Last Update: December 6, 2018