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| Makah | |
|---|---|
| q?i·q?i·di??aq | |
| Native to | United States |
| Region | Northwestern corner of the Olympic Peninsula of Washington state, on the south side of the Strait of Juan de Fuca |
| Ethnicity | 2,220 Makah (2000 census)[1] |
| Extinct | 2002, with the death of Ruth E. Claplanhoo[2] |
| Revival | L2 speakers exist |
Wakashan
| |
| Official status | |
Official language in | Makah Tribe[3] |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | myh |
| Glottolog | maka1318 |
| ELP | Makah |
 Map of Wakashan languages | |
 Makah is classified as Critically Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger | |
The Makah language is the indigenous language spoken by the Makah. Makah has not been spoken as a first language since 2002, when its last fluent native speaker died. However, it survives as a second language, and the Makah tribe is attempting to revive the language, including through preschool classes.[4][5] The endonym for the Makah is q?i·q?i·di??aq.[6]
The Makah reside in the northwestern corner of the Olympic Peninsula of Washington on the south side of the Strait of Juan de Fuca. It is closely related to Nuu-chah-nulth and Ditidaht, which are languages of the First Nations of the west coast of Vancouver Island on the north side of the strait, in the Canadian province of British Columbia. Makah is the only member of the Wakashan language family in the United States, with the other members spoken in British Columbia, from Vancouver Island to the Central Coast region.
Makah, Nuu-chah-nulth and Ditidaht belong to the Southern Nootkan branch of the Wakashan family. The Northern Wakashan languages, which are Kwak'wala, Heiltsuk-Oowekyala and Haisla, are spoken farther north, beyond the territory of the Nuu-chah-nulth.
Phonology
[edit]The phonemes (distinctive sounds) of Makah are presented below in the Makah alphabet; if the symbol in the native alphabet differs from the IPA symbol, the IPA equivalent will be given in brackets.[7]
Consonants
[edit]| Labial | Alveolar | Post- alveolar |
Velar | Uvular | Glottal | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| plain | sibilant | lateral | plain | labial | plain | labial | |||||
| Plosive/ Affricate |
voiceless | p | t | c [ts] | ? [t?] | ? [t?] | k | k? | q | q? | ? |
| ejective | p? [p?] | t? [t?] | c? [ts?] | ?? [t??] | ?? [t??] | k? [k?] | k?? [k??] | q? [q?] | q?? [q??] | ||
| voiced | b | d | |||||||||
| Fricative | s | ? [?] | ? [?] | x | x? | x? [χ] | x?? [χ?] | ||||
| Approximant | l | y [j] | w | ||||||||
Makah has no nasal phonemes, a trait rare among the world's languages that it shares with the neighboring Quileute language.[8]
Vowels
[edit]| Front | Central | Back | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| short | long | short | long | short | long | |
| Close | ? | i? | ? | u? | ||
| Mid | ? | ?? | ? | ? | o? | |
| Open | a? | |||||
There are five phonologically short vowels (written ?a e i o u? and pronounced [?], [?], [?], [?], and [?]) and five phonologically long vowels (written ?a· e· i· o· u·? and pronounced [a], [?], [i], [o], and [u]). There are also six diphthongs (written ?aw ay ey iy oy uy?, pronounced [aw], [aj], [e], [i?], [?j], and [u?j]).
Morphology
[edit]Like other Wakashan languages, Makah inflects verbs for evidentiality, indicating the level and source of the speaker's knowledge about a statement. Some examples are shown in the following table:
| Example | Translation | Evidential |
|---|---|---|
| hi·daw?a?wa·d | "I hear he found it" | -wa·t, hearsay |
| pu·pu·q?ad?i | "he's blowing a whistle" | -q?adi, auditory |
| ??apaccaqil | "It looks like a canoe" | -caqi?, uncertain visual evidence, as trying to make out something at a distance |
| ha?uk?a?pi·dic | "I see you ate" | -pi·t, inference from physical evidence |
| dudu·k?a?x?a·? | "He's probably singing" | -x?a·-?, inferred probability |
Alongside those examples, compare corresponding sentences without the evidentials: hi·daw?al, "he found it"; ??apac?, "it's a canoe"; ha?uk?alic, "you're eating"; dudu·k?al, "he's singing"."[9]
Words in Makah encode a lot information; Davidson (2002) outlines the formal word structure below (pg. 160),[6]
| base | core suffixes | aspect | peripheral suffixes | aspect | clitic sequence |
| unextended word | |||||
| expanded unextended word | |||||
| extended word | |||||
The 'unextended word' consists of a root (the 'base'), lexical suffixes, and aspectual suffixes. It carries the 'dictionary meaning' of the word, while the clitics represent what can be thought of as 'inflections' for other grammatical categories.[6]
- Lexical suffixes: Come in two varieties; nuclear, which can change the base's meaning or part of speech, and restrictive, which add to the base's meaning without altering the word class.[6] The latter include locational and directional suffixes.
- Aspectual suffixes: While they vary in realization, the extended word can mark for the following aspects,[6]
- Perfective, Imperfective, Graduative, Durative, Continuative, Repetitive, & Iterative
The 'expanded unextended' word is formed by the addition of a peripheral suffix, which can change the part of speech while and often contains an aspectual value. These suffixes 'cross-cut' the core/nuclear distinction.[6] The order of the clitic sequence is as follows:[6]
=Diminutive=Temporal=Causative=Possessive=Passive-Inverse=Tense=Mood=Pronominal=Habitual=3rd Person Plural=Responsive='again'
The modal-pronominal clitics are often combined, creating a separate set of pronominal clitics for each mood.[6] Makah marks for the indicative, purposive, quotative, subordinate, inferential, mirative, conditional, relative, content interrogative and polar interrogative moods.[6]
References
[edit]- ^ Makah at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
- ^ LOWLANDS-L archives - August 2002, week 4 (#10)
- ^ "Makah Language Program". Makah Museum. Retrieved 2025-08-05.
- ^ "Makah Language and the Makah Indian Tribe (Macaw, Classet, Klasset)". www.native-languages.org. Retrieved 2025-08-05.
- ^ "Our Language". Archived from the original on 2025-08-05. Retrieved 2025-08-05.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Davidson, Matthew (2002). Studies in Southern Wakashan (Nootkan) Grammar. Ph.D. dissertation, SUNY Buffalo, p. 94, p. 161, p. 222, p. 169, p. 320, p. 256, p. 260
- ^ The phoneme inventory and Makah alphabet are from pg. 422 of Renker and Gunther (1990) and from Makah Alphabet
- ^ Ian Maddieson (2009). "Nasals and Nasalization: Revisiting universals". Nasal 2009. Wikidata Q115902630.
- ^ Jacobsen Jr., William H. (1986). "The Heterogeneity of Evidentials in Makah". In Chafe, Wallace; Nichols, Johanna (eds.). Evidentiality: The Linguistic Coding of Epistemology. Norwood, New Jersey: Ablex Publishing Corporation. pp. 3–28. ISBN 0-89391-203-4.
Bibliography
[edit]- Renker, Ann M. and Gunther, Erna (1990). "Makah". In "Northwest Coast", ed. Wayne Suttles. Vol. 7 of Handbook of North American Indians, ed. William C. Sturtevant. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution.
External links
[edit]
- The Wakashan Linguistics Page
- Makah language (Qwiqwidicciat), at native-languages.org
- Makah whaling transcript, with audio
- Makah language, Olympic Peninsula Community Museum
- Makah language and culture classes at Neah Bay High School, 2006-2007
- OLAC resources in and about the Makah language
