English Translation: how are you?
Part of Speech: interrogative phrase
Language: Klahoose (Éy7á7juuthem)
This week’s WOTW features a phrase from the Klahoose (Éy7á7juuthem) language. It is a Salishan (Coast Salish) language spoken by the Sliammon (ɬaʔaʔmɛn), K’omoks, Klahoose, and Homalco First Nations on the central east coast of Vancouver Island, adjacent mainland, and the islands in between. Linguists have also called this language “Comox” and “Mainland Comox”. There are recognizable differences in dialect between the different First Nations that speak this language.
Éy7á7juuthem (Klahoose) language map
Did you know?
Éy7á7juuthem has many interesting linguistic features. For example, the language has grammatical inflection to mark the beginning of an event or state (called the “inceptive”). This is marked using vowel-consonant (VC) duplication:
pəs-əs ‘get numb’ (pəs ‘numb’)
tih-ih ‘get big’ (tih ‘big’)
This complex language also has a way of marking “control,” that is, marking that the subject wants the event to occur and has the capabilities that would normally ensure that (s)he (they) could bring about the desired event. Non-control signals that the event occurs accidentally or is something that the subject did only with difficulty:
tʼuçʼ-ut-as
shoot-CTr-3Sb
‘he shot it (on purpose), tried to shoot it’
tʼuçʼ-əxʷ-as
shoot-NTr-3Sb
‘he shot it (accidentally), managed to shoot it’
To learn more about this language, click here, here, or here.
To learn more about the Klahoose First Nation, visit http://klahoose.org/.
If you’d like to know more about the linguistic terms discussed in this post, e-mail jennya@cle.bc.ca.
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We acknowledge that the land on which we work is the unceded territory of the Coast Salish peoples, including the territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.