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Saanich dialect
Language of the Saanich people of North America From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Saanich (also Sənčáθən, written as SENĆOŦEN in Saanich orthography, pronounced [sənˈt͡ʃɑs̪ən]) is the language of the First Nations Saanich people in the Pacific Northwest region of northwestern North America. Saanich is a Coast Salishan language in the Northern Straits dialect continuum, the varieties of which are closely related to the Klallam language.
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Language revitalization efforts
"The W̱SÁNEĆ School Board, together with the FirstVoices program for revitalizing Aboriginal languages, is working to teach a new generation to speak SENĆOŦEN" at the ȽÁU¸WELṈEW̱ Tribal School.[5][6] The first Grade 12 class is scheduled to graduate in June 2026. [7]
SENĆOŦEN texting, mobile app and portal
A Saanich texting app was released in 2012.[8] A SENĆOŦEN iPhone app was released in October 2011.[9] An online dictionary, phrasebook, and language learning portal is available at the First Voices SENĆOŦEN Community Portal.[10]
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Phonology
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Vowels
Saanich has no rounded vowels in native vocabulary. As in many languages, vowels are strongly affected by post-velar consonants.
- /ə/ is generally mid central, but becomes [ɑ̽] adjacent to a postvelar or labio-postvelar, or a laryngeal obstruent, and especially between two such consonants, whether or not it is stressed. When unstressed, it is a close central [ɨ] following post-alveolars and before sonorants (including /ŋ/), and it is central rounded [ʉ] before the labialized obstruents.
- /ɑ/ is [ɐ] before /j/. It is also affected[clarification needed] by post-velars and /ʔ/.
Consonants
The following table includes all the sounds found in the North Straits dialects. No one dialect includes them all. Plosives are not aspirated, but are not voiced either. Ejectives have weak glottalization.
- The phonemic status of the glottalized sonorants /mˀ nˀ ŋ̠ˀ lˀ jˀ wˀ/ is not agreed upon. Some linguists analyse them as unit phonemes, others as sequences of a plain sonorant and a glottal stop /ʔ/. They do not occur in word-initial position. They tend to [ʔC] following a stressed vowel, [Cʔ] preceding a stressed vowel, and creaky voiced sonorants elsewhere.
The dentals are often written ⟨θ⟩, ⟨tθʼ⟩, but this is inaccurate, as they are laminal sibilants, [s̻, ts̻], and are only rarely interdental. The alveolars /s, ts, tsʼ/, on the other hand, are apical, as are all alveolars, including the laterals. The post-velars are often written ⟨q⟩, ⟨χ⟩, etc., but are not actually uvular.
Stress
Saanich stress is phonemic. Each full word has one stressed syllable, either in the root or in a suffix, the position of which is lexically determined. "Secondary stress" is sometimes described, but this is merely a way of distinguishing lexical schwas (with "secondary stress", like all other vowels in a word) from epenthetic schwas ("unstressed").
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Writing system
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The Saanich orthography was created by Dave Elliott in 1978, by using a typewriter to combine Latin characters with other marks to create new characters.[11] It is a unicase alphabet, using only uppercase letters with the single exception of a lower-case s for the third person possessive suffix.[12]
The glottal stop /ʔ/ is not always indicated, but may be written with a spacing cedilla: ⟨¸⟩ or less formally with a comma: ⟨,⟩. When they are distinguished, the glottalized resonants are written ⟨L¸⟩ /lˀ/, ⟨M¸⟩ /mˀ/, ⟨N¸⟩ /nˀ/, ⟨Ṉ¸⟩ /ŋ̠ˀ/, ⟨U¸⟩ /əwˀ/, ⟨Y¸⟩ /jˀ/, or likewise with a comma. The comma was the original orthography, but caused problems with text searches and the like; Saanich dictionaries, spell-check and increasingly common usage have switched to the cedilla.
The vowel /e/ is usually written ⟨Á⟩, unless it occurs next to a post-velar consonant (/k̠ k̠ʷ k̠ʼ k̠ʷʼ x̠ x̠ʷ ŋ̠ ŋ̠ʷ/), in which case it is written ⟨A⟩.
/VRˀ/ often surfaces as [VʔR] when stressed, and this may be reflected in the orthography. For instance, /ʔeʔél̕kʷəŋ/ is spelled Á¸Á¸LȻEṈ rather than phonemic *Á¸ÁL¸ȻEṈ in the Saanich dictionary, and /ʔan̕x̣sət/ is O¸NXSET rather than *ON¸XSET.[13]
Example text
Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
Unicode
In 2004, four characters from the SENĆOŦEN orthography were added to the Unicode standard,[14] and the barred K was accepted in 2024.[15]
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Grammar
Metathesis
In Saanich, metathesis is used as a grammatical device to indicate "actual" aspect. The actual aspect is most commonly translated into English using the be + -ing progressive construction. It is formed from the “nonactual” verb form through a CV → VC metathesis process, in which the consonant and vowel switch positions.
| ŦX̱ÉT 'shove' (nonactual) | → | ŦÉX̱T 'shoving' (actual) |
| ṮPÉX̱ 'scatter' (nonactual) | → | ṮÉPX̱ 'scattering' (actual) |
| ȾȽÉQ 'pinch' (nonactual) | → | ȾÉȽQ 'pinching' (actual) |
![[icon]](#/media/File:Wiki_letter_w_cropped.svg){kind=small} | This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (May 2008) |
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References
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External links
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