Klallam language

Klallam, Clallam, Ns'Klallam or S'klallam (endonym: nəxʷsƛ̕ay̕əmúcən, /nxʷst͡ɬʼajˀˈmut͡sn/), is a Straits Salishan language historically spoken by the Klallam people 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. The last native speaker of Klallam as a first language died in 2014, but there is a growing group of speakers of Klallam as a second language.

Klallam is closely related to the Northern Straits Salish dialects, Sooke, Lekwungen, Saanich, Lummi, and Samish but the languages are not mutually intelligible. There were several dialects of Klallam, including Elwha Klallam, Becher Bay Klallam, Jamestown S'Klallam and Little Boston S'Klallam.

Use and revitalization efforts
The first Klallam dictionary was published in 2012. Port Angeles High School, in Port Angeles, Washington, offers Klallam classes, taught as a heritage language "to meet graduation and college entrance requirements." Beginning fall 2020, the Klallam language has been taught at Peninsula College in Port Angeles.

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. Hazel Sampson had worked along with brother Ed Sampson (d. 1995), Tom Charles (d. 1999), Bea Charles (d. 2009) and Adeline Smith (d. 2013), other native speakers of Klallam, and with language teacher Jamie Valadez and linguist Timothy Montler from 1992 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. In 2015, a complete grammar of Klallam was published for second language instruction and preservation of the language.

Bilingual English-Klallam street signs were installed at two intersections in Port Angeles in 2016. In 2020, Donald Sullivan, a member of the Port Gamble S'Klallam Tribe, installed street signs in Klallam alongside existing English ones in Little Boston.

Vowels
Klallam has four phonemic vowels:


 * /i/ has allophones [e, ɛ] when stressed before /ʔ/, and for some speakers also before /j/, /jˀ/, /ɴ/, or /ɴˀ/. Similarly, a stressed /u/ becomes [o] before /ʔ/, and for some, also before /j/ or /jˀ/ (but not before /w/ or /wˀ/). The former is indicated in the traditional orthography, but the latter is not.
 * When unstressed, /ə/ can be pronounced as /ʌ/, or as /ɪ/, /ʊ/, or /ɑ/ in some environments:
 * Before ʔ or h, it becomes /ɑ/.
 * Around č and š, it becomes /ɪ/.
 * Before rounded dorsal consonants, it becomes /ʊ/.
 * Vowels may be stressed or unstressed. Unstressed vowels are shorter and lower in intensity than stressed vowels.
 * Unstressed schwas are often deleted. For example, nətán ("my mother") is usually pronounced as ntán.
 * In the case of schwa deletion after a nasal consonant that is immediately following the stressed vowel, the nasal consonant is often geminated. For example, čánəs ("to move something") is pronounced as čánns, even in very careful speech.

Consonants
The 36 consonants of Klallam written in the IPA, with its orthography in brackets where different:


 * Glottalized sonorants, , , ,  are realized either
 * with creaky voice:, , , , , ,
 * as decomposed glottal stop + sonorant:, , , , , or
 * as decomposed sonorant + glottal stop:, , , , ,


 * The alveolar affricate contrasts with a sequence of stop + fricative . The same goes for other affricates.
 * Doubled non-glottal stops and affricates are pronounced as two separate sounds, but doubled sonorants, /ʔ/, and fricatives are geminated.

Syllable structure
In Klallam, strings of consonants are acceptable both at the beginning and ends of syllables. In the onset, consonant clusters are rather unstructured, so words like ɬq̕čšɬšáʔ "fifty" can exist without problem. Similarly, codas can contain similar clusters of consonants, as in sx̣áʔəstxʷ "to dislike something" (wherein the unstressed schwa is dropped, creating a cluster).

Stress
Stress in Klallam defines the quality of the vowel in any given syllable and can occur only once in a word. Unstressed vowels are often reduced to schwa, which is indicated in the orthography. In turn, unstressed schwas are deleted. Mark Fleischer (1976) argues that schwa may be the only underlying vowel, saying that all others can be derived from the environment. However, there is much reason to doubt this theory, as ʔaʔ, ʔiʔ, and ʔuʔ are all contrasting words, and there are likely more minimal pairs between vowels that exist in the language.

Stress often falls on the penultimate syllable; however, some affixes attract stress, and some words do not follow this pattern. Additionally, not all words can have stress.

Affixation
Klallam is a polysynthetic language, like the other languages of the Salishan family. Affixation is common for both verbs and nouns, and affixes provide temporal, case, and aspectual information. Every word contains at least one root. For example, the Klallam word ʔəsxʷaʔnáʔyaʔŋəs ('smiling') includes prefixes, suffixes and an infix. In its component parts, /ʔəs-xʷ-naʔnáʔ-yaʔ-ŋ-əs/ means "be in a state of small laughing on the face" or more simply, "smiling". There are many forms of prefix, suffix, and infix; below are a number of examples. Allomorphy is common; often, a single affix with have multiple phonetic realizations due to stress structure or the phonology of the word it is being added to.

Prefixes
A common form of prefix is the time prefix. These prefixes can be added to nouns, adjectives and verbs to project ideas of time into the root's meaning. Examples include kwɬ- (already), twaw̓ (still), čaʔ (just now), and txʷ- (first, for a while). Other prefixes add verbal semantics with meanings such as 'have', 'go to', 'go from', and 'be affected by'.

Suffixes
Klallam has lexical suffixes, which are unique to the languages of northwest North America. They have inherently noun-like meanings and can function as the object of a verb, create a compound meaning, and act as the object of a number word. Many refer to body parts, but there are almost 100 lexical suffixes that cover a number of different ideas. Oftentimes, these suffixes can take on metaphorically extended meaning, so 'nose' can also be used to refer to a single point, and 'mouth' can mean 'language'. Below are examples of common lexical suffixes with alternate pronunciation in parentheses. Alternate pronunciations usually depend on the location of the stress in the root. There are also activity suffixes that give more information about an activity, such as 'structured' with -ayu and -ay̓s, 'customary' with -iŋəɬ, or 'habitual' with -ənəq.
 * -ákʷtxʷ (-aʔítxʷ) – ‘dollar, round object’
 * -áw̓txʷ – ‘house, building, room’
 * -áy – people
 * -éʔqʷ – ‘head’
 * -íkʷs (-íkʷən) – ‘body, of a kind’
 * -tən (-ən) – ‘instrument, tool’
 * -ucən (-cən, -cín, -úc) – ‘mouth, edge, language’

Infixes
Sometimes plurality is marked with an infix (however, there are many ways to mark plurality). This infix marks collective plurality, meaning that instead of strictly marking multiple of a noun, it creates a group of the noun. This infix takes one of the forms -əy̓-, -aʔy-, -éy-, or -éye- depending on the root structure and stress placement proceeding the infix.

Reduplication
There are multiple forms of reduplication in Klallam, and each lends a particular meaning to the word. Two-consonant reduplication is a way to express plurality in about 10% of Kallam words. The first two consonants are copied and inserted before their location in the stem, and a schwa is inserted between them. For example, ləmətú (sheep) becomes ləmləmətú (bunch of sheep) through this process. First letter reduplication is one of three ways to create a continuative verb form. The first consonant of a word is inserted after the first vowel, sometimes with a schwa added afterwards; for example, qán̓ cn (I steal) becomes qáqən̓ cn (I am stealing).

To create a diminutive form the first consonant is reduplicated with an additional 'suffix' of -aʔ afterwards and an infix of -ʔ- later in the word, which may be replaced by glottalization. With this músmes (cow) becomes maʔmúʔsməs (little cow, calf). The diminutive is not limited to noun forms. When used on a verb, the meaning takes on the characteristic of "just a little" or "by a small thing." With an adjective, the meaning is construed to a lesser extent than the original form. Other forms of reduplication exist with meanings of "characteristic," "inceptive," and "affective" aspects.

Syntax
The typical word order in Klallam is VSO, but if the subject of the verb is obvious then the object and subject can be in any order. This means that VOS is a very frequent alternative structure. In addition to when a sentence simply couldn't work with the subject and object's roles swapped, the subject is considered obvious when both participants are human and one possesses the other. For example, in kʷənáŋəts cə swéʔwəs cə táns, literally 'helped the boy his mother' (The boy helped his mother), the mother is possessed by the boy and therefore cannot be the subject. In this case, the sentence could also be written as kʷənáŋəts cə táns cə swéʔwəs, inverting the object and the subject. When an adjective is involved in a noun phrase, it comes before the noun it describes.

After the first verb, either the main verb or an auxiliary verb, often there are one or more enclitic particles, which can indicated tense and a variety of moods and evidentials.

Case system
In main clauses, Klallam uses an ergative-absolutive pattern to mark the third person. The first and second persons in the main clause, however, as well as all persons in subordinate clauses, follow a nominative-accusative pattern.

Verbs are intransitive unless marked with one of several transitivizing suffixes. The suffix -t on a verb indicates control by the actor. For example, in c̕áʔkʷ cn ʔaʔ cə nətán "I got washed by my mother", the root is unmarked and the subject cn is a patient while the agent is the object of the oblique preposition ʔaʔ, but in c̕áʔkʷt cn cə nəŋənaʔ "I washed my child", the -t transitive suffix marks that the agent subject, cn is in control of the action. In a similar manner, the transitivizer -nəxʷ indicates a lack of control, or a "finally" or "manage to" sense ─ it's out of the subject's control whether they will succeed.

A suffix -əŋ on a transitivized verb creates a passive construction. For example, c̕áʔkʷtəŋ cn ʔaʔ cə nəŋə́naʔ "I was washed by my child". There is additionally a middle voice in which the suffix -əŋ on an intransitive stem creates an antipassive construction indicating an agent subject. If no patient is mentioned in the middle voice, it is assumed that the patient and the agent are the same, as in an action being done to oneself. For example, c̕áʔkʷəŋ cn would usually be taken to mean "I washed myself", but it is subject to some ambiguity, as it could also mean "I washed (regularly)" or "I did some washing".