Red Buckeye – Aesculus pavia

Tillamook is an extinct Salishan language, formerly spoken by the Tillamook people in northwestern Oregon, United States. The last fluent speaker was Minnie Scovell who died in 1972.^[1] In an effort to prevent the language from being lost, a group of researchers from the University of Hawaii interviewed the few remaining Tillamook-speakers and created a 120-page dictionary.^[3]

Phonology

Vowels

Vowels in Tillamook
	Front	Back
High	i	ə
Low	æ	ɑ

Consonants

Consonants in Tillamook
		Alveolar			Post- alveolar	Velar		Uvular		Glottal
		central	sibilant	lateral	Post- alveolar	unrounded	rounded	unrounded	rounded	Glottal
Stop	plain	t	t͡s		t͡ʃ	k	kᵓ	q	qᵓ	ʔ
Stop	ejective	tʼ	t͡sʼ	t͡ɬʼ	t͡ʃʼ	kʼ	kᵓʼ	qʼ	qᵓʼ	ʔ
Fricative			s	ɬ	ʃ	x	xᵓ	χ	χᵓ	h
Sonorant		n		l	j		ɰᵓ

Internal rounding

The so-called "rounded" consonants (traditionally marked with the diacritic ⟨ʷ⟩, but here indicated with ⟨ᵓ⟩), including rounded vowels and ⟨w⟩ (/ɰᵓ/), are not actually labialized. The acoustic effect of labialization is created entirely inside the mouth by cupping the tongue (sulcalization). Uvulars with this distinctive internal rounding have "a kind of ɔ timbre" while "rounded" front velars have ɯ coloring. These contrast and oppose otherwise very similar segments having ɛ or ɪ coloring—the "unrounded" consonants.

/w/ is also formed with this internal rounding instead of true labialization, making it akin to [ɰ]. So are vowel sounds formerly written as /o/ or /u/, which are best characterized as the diphthong /əɰ/ with increasing internal rounding.^[4]

Notes

^ ^a ^b "A language all but lost". Tilamook Headlight Herald. May 19, 2009. Archived from the original on March 5, 2016.
^ Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger (Report) (3rd ed.). UNESCO. 2010. p. 11.
^ "Speaking Tillamook". Clatsop-Nehalem Confederated Tribes. Archived from the original on June 16, 2011.
^ Thompson & Thompson 1966, p. 316.

Bibliography

Edel, May M (1939). The Tillamook language. New York: J.J. Augustin. LCCN 40001628. OCLC 10272025.
"May M. Edel papers". Archives West. April 13, 2018 [2007]. Retrieved June 19, 2024.
Thompson, Lawrence C.; Thompson, M. Terry (1966). "A Fresh Look at Tillamook Phonology". International Journal of American Linguistics. 32 (4): 313–319. doi:10.1086/464920. JSTOR 1264085. S2CID 145658086.

External links

University of Oregon: The Tillamook
Tillamook Language
"Tillamook Vocabulary". California Language Archive. Retrieved September 22, 2013.
OLAC resources in and about the Tillamook language

[tillamookheadlightherald-1] "A language all but lost". Tilamook Headlight Herald. May 19, 2009. Archived from the original on March 5, 2016.

[2] Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger (Report) (3rd ed.). UNESCO. 2010. p. 11.

[3] "Speaking Tillamook". Clatsop-Nehalem Confederated Tribes. Archived from the original on June 16, 2011.

[FOOTNOTEThompsonThompson1966316-4] Thompson & Thompson 1966, p. 316.

[1]

[3]

[4]