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Liq̓ʷala (Southern Kwakiutl)

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Liq̓ʷala is typically placed together with Kwak̓wala as two dialects of a single Northern Wakashan language. It is spoken around Campbell River and Quadra Island on Vancouver Island.

The orthography of Liq̓ʷala is very different from the northern Kwak̓wala dialects. It follows the Americanist phonological tradition in its choice of characters, and has an additional vowel distinction: e and ē, where Kwak̓wala has only e.

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 Kwak̓wala speakers. According to Howe and Cook, there are 200 Kwak̓wala and Liq̓ʷala speakers.

Community Names:

A chart of Kwak̓wala and Liq̓ʷala communities has been compiled from several sources.

Consonants

	bilabial	alveolar	alveolar affricate	lateral	velar (y-offglide)	rounded velar	uvular	rounded uvular	glottal
voiced stop	b	d	dᶻ	λ	g	gʷ	ǧ	ǧʷ	ʔ
aspirated stop	p	t	c	ƛ	k	kʷ	q	qʷ
ejective stop	p̓	t̓	c̓	ƛ̓	k̓	k̓ʷ	q̓	q̓ʷ
voiceless fricative			s	ł	x	xʷ	x̌	x̌ʷ	h
nasal / resonant	m	n		l	y	w
glottalised n/r	m̓	n̓		l̓	y̓	w̓

Vowels

	front	central	back
high	i		u
mid	ē	e ə	o
low		a

Notes:

e is pronounced [ʌ], while ə is the reduced schwa.
The acute accent á marks stress. This accent is typically left out of Kwak̓wala writing.

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Last Update: Tuesday, September 19, 2006