Native to United States ISO 639-3 clm | Region Washington Glottolog clal1241 | |
Extinct 4 February 2014, with the death of Hazel Sampson Language family Salishan
Coast
Central
Straits Salish
Klallam | ||
Klallam or Clallam (native name: nəxʷsƛ̕ay̕əmúcən) was a Straits Salishan language that was traditionally spoken by the Klallam peoples at Becher Bay on Vancouver Island in British Columbia and across the Strait of Juan de Fuca on the north coast of the Olympic Peninsula in Washington.
Contents
Klallam was closely related to North Straits Salish, but not mutually intelligible.
The last native speaker of Klallam was Hazel Sampson, who died on February 4, 2014, at age 103. It continues to be spoken with varying degrees of fluency by six younger Klallam as a second language.
Use and revitalization efforts
The first Klallam dictionary was published in 2012. Port Angeles High School, in Port Angeles, Washington, offers Klallam language classes to its students "to meet graduation and college entrance requirements."
The last native speaker of Klallam as a first language was Hazel Sampson of Port Angeles, who died on February 4, 2014 at the age of 103. Sampson had worked along with Bea Charles (d. 2009) and Adeline Smith (d. 2013), other native speakers of Klallam, and with linguists Jamie Valadez and Timothy Montler from 1990 to compile the Klallam dictionary. In 1999, this effort led to the development of a lesson plan and guidebooks to teach students the basics of the language through storytelling.
Consonants
The 34 consonants of Klallam written in its orthography, with IPA in brackets when different:
- with creaky voice: [m̰], [n̰], [ɴ̰], [j̰], [w̰],
- as decomposed glottal stop + sonorant: [ʔm], [ʔn], [ʔɴ], [ʔj], [ʔw], or
- as decomposed sonorant + glottal stop: [mʔ], [nʔ], [ɴʔ], [jʔ], [wʔ]
Vowels
The 5 vowels of Klallam: