Kwakwala

Kwak̕wala is a Northern Wakashan language spoken at the north end of Vancouver Island and adjacent areas on the mainland. There are several dialects, including: G̱ut̕sala (Quatsino Sound), Kwak̕wala (Gilford Island, Knight Inlet, Kwakiutl, Nimpkish), 'Nak̕wala (Northern), and T̕łat̕łasik̕wala (Nahwitti). Liq̓ʷala (Lekwiltok) is often considered a dialect of Kwak̕wala as well, but may warrant separate language status and uses the a different orthography).

The first writing system presented here is the practical orthography as given in Grubb 1977 and updated in Galois 1994. The U'mista Cultural Society uses a modified version of this orthography for that Kwak̕wala dialect, for which it is official. Their website does not write the glottal apostrophe above the consonant (k̓), instead it writes it after (k’). This is a consequence of the difficulty in getting the accent to work online, as their map (in a graphics format) shows the apostrophe above. The Grubb orthography differs from the one given here in that: it has the digraph ‹lh› for the current ‹ł›, the vowels ‹e› and ‹eh› are now ‹› and ‹e›, and it writes ejective stops as ‹k’›, ‹t’›, etc.

The second writing system uses Americanist Phonetic symbols which are commonly used by North American linguists. It is currently in use for at least the southern (Liq̓ʷala) dialect.

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.

ISO 639-3 language code: kwk

Demographics

The Canadian Census does not individually count Kwak̕wala speakers. According to Howe and Cook, there are 200 Kwak̕wala and Liq̓ʷala speakers.

Community Names

A chart of Kwak̕wala communities has been compiled from several sources.

Consonants — U'mista orthography

  bilabial alveolar alveolar affricate lateral velar (y-offglide) rounded velar uvular rounded uvular glottal
voiced stop b d dz dl / dł g gw g̱w '
aspirated stop p t ts k kw ḵw  
ejective stop t̕s t̕ł k̕w ḵ̓ ḵ̕w  
voiceless fricative     s ł x xw x̱w h
nasal / resonant m n   l y w      
glottalised n/r 'm 'n   'l 'y 'w      

Vowels — U'mista Orthography

  front central back
high i   u
mid e o
low   a  

Notes

  1. Although Grubb's orthography uses the numeral 7 for a glottal stop, U'mista and Galois use an apostrophe, I am taking the apostrophe as standard.
  2. The acute accent á marks stress. This accent is typically left out of Kwak̕wala writing.
  3. It seems the sound /dl/ can be written either ‹dl› or ‹› depending on the preference of the writer.
  4. There are three kinds of apostrophe marks in the U'mista orthography:
    • The glottal stop is a straight apostrophe ‹ ' ›, appearing between vowels and before resonants [U+0027]
    • The ejective (glottalised) accent goes on top of single consonants: ‹› [U+0313]
    • The ejective (glottalised) accent goes in between the two letters of digraph consonants: ‹k̕w› [U+0315]

Consonants — Southern orthography

  bilabial alveolar alveolar affricate lateral velar (y-offglide) rounded velar uvular rounded uvular glottal
voiced stop b d dᶻ λ g ǧ ǧʷ ʔ
aspirated stop p t c ƛ k q  
ejective stop ƛ̓ k̓ʷ q̓ʷ  
voiceless fricative     s ł x x̌ʷ h
nasal / resonant m n   l y w      
glottalised n/r        

Vowels — Southern Orthography

  front central back
high i   u
high-mid ē
low-mid e ə o
low   a  

Notes

  1. The vowels ‹e› and ‹ē› are not always as indicated in the table above.
    • e› is retracted to [ʌ] around uvular, and rounded to [ʊ] after rounded uvular consonants.
    • ē› is [e] in non uvular environments, and raised to [ɩ] after the unrounded velar consonants.
  2. The acute accent á marks stress. This accent is typically left out of Kʷak̓ʷala writing.
  3. There is no form of the capital glottal stop. Instead, words beginning with a glottal stop capitalise the next letter: ‹ʔEǧas
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Last Modified: 25-Aug-2011