Quinault language

Quinault (Kʷínaył) is a member of the Tsamosan (Olympic) branch of the Coast Salish family of Salishan languages. It is extinct, but efforts are being taken to revitalize it.

Quinault
Kʷínaył
Native to	United States
Region	Olympic Peninsula, Washington
Ethnicity	1,500 Quinault people (1977)[1]
Extinct	1996[1] half a dozen know some vocabulary (2007)[1]
Revival	revival efforts underway[1][2][3]
Language family	Salishan Coast Tsamosan Maritime Quinault
Language codes
ISO 639-3	qun
Glottolog	quin1251

Phonology

Consonants

		Bilabial	Alveolar			Palatal	Velar		Uvular		Glottal
			central	sibilant	lateral		plain	lab.	plain	lab.
Plosive/ Affricate	plain	p	t	ts		tʃ	k	kʷ	q	qʷ	ʔ
	ejective	pʼ	tʼ	tsʼ	tɬʼ	tʃʼ	kʼ	kʷʼ	qʼ	qʷʼ
	voiced					dʒ	ɡ[a]
Fricative	voiceless			s	ɬ	ʃ	x	xʷ	χ	χʷ	h
	voiced						ɣ[a]
Sonorant		m	n		l	j		w

1. A voiced fricative sound /ɣ/ may also be heard as a voiced stop [ɡ].

• Sounds /w, j, l/ can be heard as voiceless [w̥, j̊, l̥] when within voiceless positions.
• /xʷ/ may also be pronounced as [ʍ] in free variation.^[4]

Vowels are represented as /i, ɛ, ə, a, ɔ, u/ and /iː, uː, aː/.^[5][4]

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i iː		u uː
Mid	ɛ	ə	ɔ
Open		a aː

An alternative phonology is as follows:

Quinault vowels^[6]

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Near-close	ɪ
Mid	e	ə	o
Open	a