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Nuxalk

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Text Example

The Nuxalk language is spoken somewhat inland, mid way up the Pacific coast of British Columbia around the town of Bella Coola.

The writing system presented here is the practical orthography as shown in Nater 1990. It is a Bouchard-style orthography, and is therefore similar to other British Columbia Native writing systems. Long vowels and consonants are written doubled. Stress is marked in the dictionary.

Note: There are several Roman Orthography conventions on this site that may require further explanation. On the charts below, there is lots of phonetic terminology that may not be familiar to everyone.

The Canadian Census does not individually count Nuxalk speakers. According to Howe and Cook, there are 20 speakers.

Community Names

Kwalhnmc – Kwatna
Q’umquots – Bella Coola
Sutslmc – Kimsquit
Taliyumc – South Bentick

The community names were found on the Nuxalk Nation homepage.

Consonants

  bilabial alveolar alveolar affricate lateral palatal velar rounded velar uvular rounded uvular glottal
voiceless stop
p
t
ts
k
kw
q
qw
7
ejective stop
p’
t’
ts’
tl’
k’
kw’
q’
qw’
voiceless fricative
s
lh
c
cw
x
xw
h
nasal / resonant
m
n
l
y
w

Vowels

  front central back
high
i - ii
u – uu
low
a – aa

Notes

  • I have seen examples of the language which use underlined m̱ ṉ and ḻ. I believe these are ways of writing syllabic sounds (i.e. consonants acting like vowels).
  • Digraphs are made long by doubling the second letter of the pair, so a long /lh/ is written lhh.

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Last Update: February 23, 2008