Kwak̕wala / Kʷak̓ʷala Language

Kwak̕wala Text

Kwak̕wala (ISO 639-3: kwk) is a Northern Wakashan language spoken at the north end of Vancouver Island and adjacent areas on the mainland. There are several dialects, including: G̱ut̕sala (Quatsino Sound), Kwak̕wala (Gilford Island, Knight Inlet, Kwakiutl, Nimpkish), 'Nak̕wala (Northern), and T̕łat̕łasik̕wala (Nahwitti). Liq̓ʷala (Lekwiltok) is often considered a dialect of Kwak̕wala as well, but may warrant separate language status and uses a different orthography.

The first writing system presented here is the practical orthography as given in Grubb 1977 and updated in Galois 1994. The U'mista Cultural Society uses a modified version of this orthography for that Kwak̕wala dialect, for which it is official. The Grubb orthography differs from the one given here in that: it has the digraph ‹lh› for the current ‹ł›, the vowels ‹e› and ‹eh› are now ‹a̱› and ‹e›, and it writes ejective stops with the apostrophe after the letter instead of above it: as ‹k’›, ‹t’›, etc.

The second writing system uses Americanist Phonetic symbols which are commonly used by North American linguists. It is currently in use for at least the southern (Liq̓ʷala) dialect.

The Canadian Census counts 605 people with knowledge of Kwak̕wala in 2016. According to Howe and Cook, there are 200 Kwak̕wala and Liq̓ʷala speakers.

Kwak̕wala Consonants

U'mista Orthography

	bilabial	alveolar	alveolar affricate	lateral	velar (y-offglide)	velar rounded	uvular	uvular rounded	glottal
voiced stop	b	d	dz	dl / dł	g	gw	g̱	g̱w	'
aspirated stop	p	t	ts	tł	k	kw	ḵ	ḵw
ejective stop	p̓	t̓	t̕s	t̕ł	k̓	k̕w	ḵ̓	ḵ̕w
voiceless fricative			s	ł	x	xw	x̱	x̱w	h
nasal / resonant	m	n		l	y	w
glottalized	'm	'n		'l	'y	'w

Kwak̕wala Vowels

U'mista Orthography

	front	central	back
high	i		u
mid	e	a̱	o
low		a

Notes for Kwak̕wala

1. Although Grubb's orthography uses the numeral 7 for a glottal stop, U'mista and Galois use an apostrophe, I am taking the apostrophe as standard.
2. The acute accent á marks stress. This accent is typically left out of Kwak̕wala writing.
3. It seems the sound /dl/ can be written either dl or dł depending on the preference of the writer.
4. There are three kinds of apostrophe marks in the U'mista orthography:
   • The glottal stop is a straight apostrophe ' appearing between vowels and before resonants [U+0027]
   • The ejective (glottalised) accent goes on top of single consonants: p̓ [U+0313]
   • The ejective (glottalised) accent goes in between the two letters of digraph consonants: k̕w [U+0315]

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Kʷak̓ʷala Consonants

Liq̓ʷala Orthography

	bilabial	alveolar	alveolar affricate	lateral	velar (y-offglide)	velar rounded	uvular	uvular rounded	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
glottalized	m̓	n̓		l̓	y̓	w̓

Kʷak̓ʷala Vowels

Liq̓ʷala Orthography

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

Notes for Kʷak̓ʷala

1. The vowels e and ē are not always as indicated in the table above.
   • e is retracted to [ʌ] around uvular, and rounded to [ʊ] after rounded uvular consonants.
   • ē is [e] in non uvular environments, and raised to [ɩ] after the unrounded velar consonants.
2. The acute accent á marks stress. This accent is typically left out of Kʷak̓ʷala writing.
3. There is no form of the capital glottal stop. Instead, words beginning with a glottal stop capitalise the next letter: ʔEǧas