Hostname: page-component-89b8bd64d-sd5qd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-05-07T02:20:58.566Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Salish Phonologic Geography

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2026

Morris Swadesh
Morris Swadesh*
Affiliation:
Columbia University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Salishan is a widely ramified stock of considerable time depth and of extensive geographic spread in western North America, where it comes into contact with a number of other distinct stocks. Because of its internal ramification and its diversified external contacts, Salishan offers an extremely fruitful field for studying the effect of language on language in geographic and historic contexts.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 28 , Issue 2-Part1: April-June , June 1952 , pp. 232 - 248
Copyright
Copyright © 1952 Linguistic Society of America

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

1 Population figures are based on James Mooney, The aboriginal population of America north of Mexico. Smithsonian miscellaneous collections, Vol. 80, No. 7 (1928). Geographical locations given in this article are based on Franz Boas and Herman Haeberlin, Sound shifts in Salish dialers. IJAL 4.117–36 (1927), with map on p. 119.

2 See Swadesh. Salish internal relationships, IJAL 16.157 (1950).

3 The time depth, as calculated in my article Salish internal relationships, runs as high as 7000 years. Subsequent research on the rate of change suggests that the constant used in that study may represent a minimum rate. The time depth of Salish is perhaps better given as between 5000 and 7000 years.

4 Altho Sapir's Nadene theory has met with reserved judgment by some scholars, I regard it as proved. See Swadesh, Diffusional cumulation and archaic residue as historical explanations, Southwestern journal of anthropology 7.14 ff. (1951).

5 Evidence tending to substantiate the genetic relation of Salish, Chemakuan, and Wakashan is presented in Swadesh, The linguistic approach to Salish prehistory, Indians of the urban northwest 167–71 (ed. Marian Smith; New York, 1949).

5a Italic letters in this paper represent phonemes; most of them need no phonetic explanation. The less familiar symbols may be phonetically characterized as follows: c, sibilant affricate; ç, shibilant affricate; g, voiced velar stop; j, voiced shibilant affricate; r, voiced pharyngeal spirant; z, voiced sibilant affricate; λ, voiced lateral affricate; ƛ, voiceless lateral affricate; χ, voiceless velar spirant. An apostrophe after a letter indicates glottalization. Double vowel letters in Nootka forms denote long vowels.

6 See Stanley Newman, Bella Coola I: Phonology, IJAL 13.129–34 (1947). The following sources are used for some of the languages in this paper: Franz Boas, A Chehalis text, IJAL 8.103–10 (1934); Gladys A. Reichard, Coeur d'Alene, Handbook of American Indian languages 3.515–707 (1938); Hans Vogt, The Kalispel language (Oslo, 1940); Colin Ellidge Tweddell, The Snoqualmie-Duwamish dialects of Puget Sound Salish, Univ. of Wash. Publ. in Anthr. 12.1–78 (1950); Edward Sapir, Noun reduplication in Comox, a Salish language of Vancouver Island, Geological survey, Memoir 63 (Anthropological series, No. 6; Ottawa, 1915); May M. Edel, The Tillamook language, IJAL 10.1–57 (1939). For other languages I have consulted various MSS in the Boas Collection of the American Philosophical Society, esp. Boas' Comparative Salishan vocabularies (ca. 1925).

7 The material on Clallam and Nanaimo was gathered some 40 years ago, and gives no clear picture of the phonemic structure. In particular, it is not easy to tell whether the recorded sounds c and ç represent variations within one series or two distinct series. Because of frequent inconsistencies, I assume tentatively that no phonemic contrast exists between c and ç.

8 On the presence of labialized consonants in Siletz, see Boas and Haeberlin, IJAL 4.135. The Siletz vocabulary of Leo J. Frachtenberg (IJAL 1.45–6) may actually be Northern Tillamook, since it includes ynkas ‘heart’ (from Proto-Salish ynwas) with unrounded k.

9 Swadesh, Salish cognates (1951), MS in the Boas Collection.

9a The names of languages are abbreviated as follows: Be, Bella Coola; Ch, Upper Chehalis; Cl, Clallam; Cm, Columbia, Cr, Coeur d'Alene; Cw, Cowlitz; Cx, Comox; Fr, Lower Fraser; Ka, Kalispel; Li, Lillooet; Lk, Lkungen; Lm, Lummi; Lo, Lower Chehalis; Ni, Nisqualli; Nn, Nanaimo; Nt, Nootsak; Ok, Okanagon; Pr, Proto-Salish; Pt, Pentlatch; Qu, Quinault; Sa, Satsop; Sh, Shuswap; Sn, Snoqualmie; Sq, Squamish; St,Seshelt; Th, Thompson River; Ti, Tillamook; Tw, Twana.

10 Hans Vogt, Salishan studies: Comparative notes on Kalispel, Spokan, Colville, and Coeur d'Alene (Oslo, 1940).

11 See Boas and Haeberlin, IJAL 4.134.

12 See Boas and Haeberlin, IJAL 4.126–7.

13 Boas and Haeberlin, IJAL 4.128, say that of the Interior languages only Thompson has y for l. But a number of Lillooet examples appear in Boas' Comparative Salishan vocabularies (ca. 1925). Since there are also Lillooet forms with l for l, it would seem that local dialects differ on this point.

14 IJAL 4.136.

15 See Newman, IJAL 13.134.