Tillamook is an extinct Salishan language, formerly spoken by the Tillamook people in northwestern Oregon, United States. The last fluent speaker was Minnie Scovell who died in 1972.[1] In an effort to prevent the language from being lost, a group of researchers from the University of Hawaii interviewed the few remaining Tillamook-speakers and created a 120-page dictionary.[3]
Tillamook | |
---|---|
Hutyáyu, Hutyéyu | |
Native to | United States |
Region | Northwestern Oregon |
Ethnicity | Tillamook, Siletz |
Extinct | 1972, with the death of Minnie Scovell[1] |
Salishan
| |
Dialects |
|
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | til |
Glottolog | till1254 |
Tillamook is classified as Extinct by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger [2] | |
Front | Back | |
---|---|---|
High | i | ə |
Low | æ | ɑ |
Alveolar | Post- alveolar |
Velar | Uvular | Glottal | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
central | sibilant | lateral | unrounded | rounded | unrounded | rounded | ||||
Stop | plain | t | t͡s | t͡ʃ | k | kᵓ | q | qᵓ | ʔ | |
ejective | tʼ | t͡sʼ | t͡ɬʼ | t͡ʃʼ | kʼ | kᵓʼ | qʼ | qᵓʼ | ||
Fricative | s | ɬ | ʃ | x | xᵓ | χ | χᵓ | h | ||
Sonorant | n | l | j | ɰᵓ |
The so-called "rounded" consonants (traditionally marked with the diacritic ⟨ʷ⟩, but here indicated with ⟨ᵓ⟩), including rounded vowels and ⟨w⟩ (/ɰᵓ/), are not actually labialized. The acoustic effect of labialization is created entirely inside the mouth by cupping the tongue (sulcalization). Uvulars with this distinctive internal rounding have "a kind of ɔ timbre" while "rounded" front velars have ɯ coloring. These contrast and oppose otherwise very similar segments having ɛ or ɪ coloring—the "unrounded" consonants.
/w/ is also formed with this internal rounding instead of true labialization, making it akin to [ɰ]. So are vowel sounds formerly written as /o/ or /u/, which are best characterized as the diphthong /əɰ/ with increasing internal rounding.[4]