Colville-Okanagan is a Salish language

Salishan languages

The Salishan languages are a group of languages of the Pacific Northwest...

 which arose among the inhabitants of the Okanagan River Basin  and spread into the Columbia River Basin

Columbia Basin

The Columbia Basin, the drainage basin of the Columbia River, occupies a large area–about —of the Pacific Northwest region of North America. In common usage, the term often refers to a smaller area, generally the portion of the drainage basin that lies within eastern Washington.Usage of the term...

. Following British, American, and Canadian colonization during the 1800s and the subsequent repression of all Salishan languages, the use of Colville-Okanagan declined drastically. Colville-Okanagan is highly endangered and is rarely learned as either a first

First language

A first language is the language a person has learned from birth or within the critical period, or that a person speaks the best and so is often the basis for sociolinguistic identity...

 or second language

Second language

A second language or L2 is any language learned after the first language or mother tongue. Some languages, often called auxiliary languages, are used primarily as second languages or lingua francas ....

. There are about 150 deeply fluent

Fluency

Fluency is the property of a person or of a system that delivers information quickly and with expertise.-Speech:...

 speakers of Colville-Okanagan Salish, the majority of whom live in British Columbia. The language is currently moribund and has no fluent speakers younger than 50 years of age. Colville-Okanagan is the second most spoken Salish language after Shuswap

Shuswap

Shuswap *Secwepemc - an indigenous people in British Columbia, Canada, also known in English as the Shuswap*Shuswap language - a language spoken by the Secwepemc...

.

History and Description

Historically, Colville-Okanagan originated from a language which was spoken in the Columbia River Basin

Columbia Basin

The Columbia Basin, the drainage basin of the Columbia River, occupies a large area–about —of the Pacific Northwest region of North America. In common usage, the term often refers to a smaller area, generally the portion of the drainage basin that lies within eastern Washington.Usage of the term...

 and is now termed Proto Southern Interior Salish. As a result of the initial expansion of Colville-Okanagan prior to Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

an contact, the language developed three separate dialects: Colville, Okanagan, and Lakes. There is a low degree of dialectic divergence in terms of vocabulary and grammar. Variation is primarily confined to pronunciation. The vast majority of Colville-Okanagan words are from Proto-Salish or Proto-Interior Salish. A number of Colville-Okanagan words are shared with or borrowed from the neighboring Salish

Salishan languages

The Salishan languages are a group of languages of the Pacific Northwest...

, Sahaptian

Sahaptian languages

Sahaptian is a sub-grouping of two languages of the Plateau Penutian family spoken by Native American peoples in the Columbia Plateau region of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho in the northwestern United States.-Family division:Sahaptian includes 2 languages*Kittitas *Klickitat*Nez Percé**Nez Percé...

, and Kutenai

Kutenai language

The Kutenai language is named after and is spoken by some of the Kootenai Native American/First Nations people who are indigenous to the area of North America that is now Montana, Idaho, and British Columbia....

 languages. More recent word borrowings are from English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 and French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

. Colville-Okanagan was an exclusively oral

Orality

Orality is thought and verbal expression in societies where the technologies of literacy are unfamiliar to most of the population. The study of orality is closely allied to the study of oral tradition...

 form of communication until the late 19th century when priests and linguists began transcribing the language for word lists, dictionaries, grammars, and translations. Colville-Okanagan is currently written in Roman script using the American Phonetic Alphabet.

In Colville-Okanagan the language itself is known as nsəlxcin or nsyilxcn. Speakers of nsəlxcin occupied the northern portion of the Columbia Basin

Columbia Basin

The Columbia Basin, the drainage basin of the Columbia River, occupies a large area–about —of the Pacific Northwest region of North America. In common usage, the term often refers to a smaller area, generally the portion of the drainage basin that lies within eastern Washington.Usage of the term...

 from the Methow River in the west, to Kootenay Lake in the east, and north along the Columbia River and the Arrow Lakes. Colville-Okanagan is the heritage language of the Lower Similkameen Indian Band

Lower Similkameen Indian Band

The Lower Similkameen Indian Band is a First Nations government in the Canadian province of British Columbia, located in the town of Keremeos in the Similkameen District. They are a member of the Okanagan Nation Alliance....

, the Upper Similkameen Indian Band

Upper Similkameen Indian Band

The Upper Similkameen Indian Band is a First Nations government in the Canadian province of British Columbia, located in town of Princeton in the Similkameen District. They are a member of the Okanagan Nation Alliance....

, the Westbank First Nation

Westbank First Nation

The Westbank First Nation is a First Nations government in the Okanagan region of the Canadian province of British Columbia, located with the District of West Kelowna. They are a member of the Okanagan Nation Alliance...

, the Osoyoos Indian Band

Osoyoos Indian Band

The Osoyoos Indian Band is a First Nations government in the Canadian province of British Columbia, located in the town of Osoyoos in the Okanagan valley, about four kilometres north of the International Border. They are a member of the Okanagan Nation Alliance...

, the Penticton Indian Band

Penticton Indian Band

The Penticton Indian Band is a First Nations government in the Canadian province of British Columbia, located next to the city of Penticton in the Okanagan Valley. They are a member of the Okanagan Nation Alliance.-Indian Reserves:...

, the Okanagan Indian Band

Okanagan Indian Band

The Okanagan Indian Band is a First Nations government in the Canadian province of British Columbia, located in the city of Vernon in the northern Okanagan Valley...

, the Upper Nicola Indian Band

Upper Nicola Indian Band

The Upper Nicola Indian Band is a First Nations government in the Canadian province of British Columbia, located near the town of Merritt in the Nicola Country at Douglas Lake...

, and the Colville

Colville (tribe)

The Colville tribe is a Native American tribe of the Pacific Northwest. The name Colville comes from association with Fort Colville, named after Andrew Colvile of the Hudson's Bay Company...

, Sanpoil

Sanpoil (tribe)

The Sanpoil is one of 12 aboriginal Confederated Tribes of the Colville Indian Reservation. The name Sanpoil comes from the Okanagan [snpʕwílx], "gray as far as one can see". It has been folk-etymologized as coming from the French sans poil, "without fur". The Yakama people know the tribe as...

, Okanogan

Okanagan people

The Okanagan people, also spelled Okanogan, are a First Nations and Native American people whose traditional territory spans the U.S.-Canada boundary in Washington state and British Columbia...

, Lakes

Sinixt

The Sinixt are a First Nations People...

, Nespelem

Nespelem (tribe)

The Nespelem people belong to one of 12 aboriginal Confederated Tribes of the Colville Indian Reservation in eastern Washington. They lived primarily near the banks of the Nespelem River, an Upper Columbia River tributary, in an area now known as Nespelem, Washington, located on the Colville Indian...

 and Methow

Methow (tribe)

The Methow , a Native American tribe historically lived along the Methow River, a tributary of the Columbia River in northern Washington. The tribe's name for the river was Buttlemuleemauch, meaning "salmon falls river". The river's English name is taken from that of the tribe...

 bands of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation

Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation

The Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation is the federally recognized tribe that controls the Colville Indian Reservation, which is located in Washington, United States....

. In Colville-Okanagan all nsyilxcn speaking bands are grouped under the ethnic label syilx. Four non-profit organizations which support Colville-Okanagan language acquisition and revitalization are the Paul Creek Language Association in Keremeos BC, the En'owkin Centre in Penticton BC, the Waterfalls Immersion School in Omak WA, as well as the Salish School of Spokane in Spokane

Spokane

Spokane is a city in the U.S. state of Washington.Spokane may also refer to:*Spokane *Spokane River*Spokane, Missouri*Spokane Valley, Washington*Spokane County, Washington*Spokane-Coeur d'Alene-Paloos War*Spokane * USS Spokane...

 WA.

Okanagan is reported to contain the rare uvular flap

Uvular flap

The uvular flap is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages.There is no dedicated symbol for this sound in the IPA. It can be transcribed by adding a 'short' diacritic to the letter for the uvular plosive or trill, or , but normally it is covered by the unmodified letter for the...

.

Language Learning

• Peterson, Wiley, and Parkin. (2004). Nsəlxcin 1: A Beginning Course in Colville-Okanagan Salish. The Paul Creek Language Association.
• Peterson, Wiley, and Parkin. (2005) Captíkʷł 1: Nsəlxcin Stories for Beginners. The Paul Creek Language Association.
• Peterson and Parkin. (2007) Nsəlxcin 2: An Intermediate Course in Okanagan Salish. The Paul Creek Language Association.
• Peterson and Parkin. (2007) Captíkʷł 2: More Nsəlxcin Stories for Beginners. The Paul Creek Language Association.
• Peterson and Parkin. (In Press) Nsəlxcin 3. The Paul Creek Language Association.
• Peterson and Parkin. (In Press) Captíkʷł 3. The Paul Creek Language Association.
• Manuel, Herbert, and Anthony Mattina. (1983). Okanagan Pronunciation Primer. University of Montana Linguistics Laboratory.

Narratives, Dictionaries, and Word Lists

• Doak, Ivy G. (1983). The 1908 Okanagan Word Lists of James Teit. Missoula, Montana: Dept. of Anthropology, University of Montana, 1983.
• Mattina, Anthony and Madeline DeSautel. (2002). Dora Noyes DeSautel łaʔ kłcaptikʷł: Okanagan Salish Narratives. University of Montana Occasional Papers in Linguistics 15.
• Seymour, Peter, Madeline DeSautel, and Anthony Mattina. (1985). The Golden Woman: The Colville Narrative of Peter J. Seymour. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
• Seymour, Peter, Madeline DeSautel, and Anthony Mattina. (1974). The Narrative of Peter J. Seymour Blue Jay and His Brother-In-Law Wolf.
• Mattina, Anthony. Colville-Okanagan Dictionary. Missoula, Mont: Dept. of Anthropology, University of Montana, 1987.
• Pierre, Larry and Martin Louie. (1973). Classified Word List for the Okanagan Language. MS, Penticton, B.C.
• Purl, Douglas. (1974). The Narrative of Peter J. Seymour: Blue Jay and Wolf. ICSL 9, Vancouver, B.C.
• Somday, James B. (1980). Colville Indian Language Dictionary. Ed.D. dissertation, University of North Dakota, Grand Forks. DAI 41A:1048.

Linguistic Descriptions and Reviews

• Arrowsmith, Gary L. (1968). Colville Phonemics. M.A. thesis, University of Washington, Seattle.
• Baptiste, M. 2002. Wh-Questions in Okanagan Salish. M.A. thesis, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C.
• Barthmaier, Paul. (2004). Intonation Units in Okanagan. Pp. 30–42 of Gerdts and Matthewson (eds.) 2004.
• Barthmaier, Paul. (2002). Transitivity and Lexical Suffixes in Okanagan. Papers for ICSNL 37 (Gillon, C., N. Sawai, and R. Wojdak, eds.). UBCWPL 9:1–17.
• Charlie, William M., Clara Jack, and Anthony Mattina. (1988). William Charlie’s “Two-Headed Person”: Preliminary Notes on Colville-Okanagan Oratory. ICSNL 23(s.p.), Eugene, Oregon.
• Dilts, Philip. (2006.) An Analysis of the Okanagan “middle” marker -M. Papers for ICSNL 41 (Kiyota, M., J. Thompson, and N. Yamane-Tanaka, eds.). UBCWPL 11:77–98.
• Doak, Ivy G. (1981). A Note on Plural Suppletion in Colville Okanagan. Pp. 143–147 of (Anthony) Mattina and Montler (eds.) 1981.
• Doak, Ivy G. (2004). [Review of Dora Noyes DeSautel ła’ kłcaptíkwł ([Anthony] Mattina and DeSautel [eds.] 2002.] AL 46:220–222.
• Doak, Ivy, and Anthony Mattina. (1997). Okanagan -lx, Coeur d’Alene -lš, and Cognate Forms. IJAL 63:334–361.
• Fleisher, Mark S. (1979). A Note on Schuhmacher’s Inference of wahú’ in Colville Salish. IJAL 45:279–280.
• Galloway, Brent D. (1991). [Review of Colville-Okanagan Dictionary ([Anthony] Mattina 1987).] IJAL 57:402–405.
• Harrington, John P. (1942). Lummi and Nespelem Fieldnotes. Microfilm, reel No. 015, remaining data as per Harrington 1910.
• Hébert, Yvonne M. (1978). Sandhi in a Salishan Language: Okanagan. ICSL 13:26–56, Victoria, B.C.
• Hébert, Yvonne M. (1979). A Note on Aspect in (Nicola Lake) Okanagan. ICSL 14:173–209, Bellingham, Washington.
• Hébert, Yvonne M. (1982a). Transitivity in (Nicola Lake) Okanagan. Ph.D. dissertation, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C. DAI 43A:3896.
• Hébert, Yvonne M. (1982b). Aspect and Transitivity in (Nicola Lake) Okanagan. Syntax and Semantics 15:195–215.
• Hébert, Yvonne M. (1983). Noun and Verb in a Salishan Language. KWPL 8:31–81.
• Hill-Tout, Charles. (1911). Report on the Ethnology of the Okanák.ēn of British Columbia, an Interior Division of the Salish Stock. JAIGBI 41:130–161. London.
• Kennedy, Dorothy I. D., and Randall T. [Randy] Bouchard. (1998). ‘Northern Okanagan, Lakes, and Colville.’ Pp. 238–252 of Walker, Jr. (vol. ed.) 1998.
• Kinkade, M. Dale. (1967). On the Identification of the Methows (Salish). IJAL 33:193–197.
• Kinkade, M. Dale. (1987). [Review of The Golden Woman: The Colville Narrative of Peter J. Seymour (Mattina 1985).] Western Folklore 46:213–214.
• Kroeber, Karl, and Eric P. Hamp. (1989). [Review of The Golden Woman: The Colville Narrative of Peter J. Seymour (Mattina, ed.).] IJAL 55:94–97.
• Krueger, John R. (1967). Miscellanea Selica V: English-Salish Index and Finder List. AL 9(2):12–25.

• Mattina, Anthony and Clara Jack. (1982). Okanagan Communication and Language. ICSNL 17:269–294, Portland, Oregon.
• Mattina, Anthony and Clara Jack. (1986). Okanagan-Colville Kinship Terms. ICSNL 21:339–346, Seattle, Washington. [Published as Mattina and Jack 1992.]
• Mattina, Anthony and Nancy J. Mattina. (1995). Okanagan ks- and -kł. ICSNL 30, Victoria, B.C.
• Mattina, Anthony and Sarah Peterson. (1997). Diminutives in Colville-Okanagan. ICSNL 32:317–324, Port Angeles, Washington.
• Mattina, Anthony and Allan Taylor. (1984). The Salish Vocabularies of David Thompson. IJAL 50:48–83.
• Mattina, Nancy J. (1993). Some Lexical Properties of Colville-Okanagan Ditransitives. ICSNL 28:265–284, Seattle, Washington.
• Mattina, Nancy J. (1994a). Roots, Bases, and Stems in Colville-Okanagan. ICSNL 29, Pablo, Montana.
• Mattina, Nancy J. (1994b). Argument Structure of Nouns, Nominalizations, and Denominals in Okanagan Salish. Paper presented at the 2nd Annual University of Victoria Salish Morphosyntax Workshop, Victoria, B.C.
• Mattina, Nancy J. (1994c). Notes on Word Order in Colville-Okanagan Salish. NWLC 10:93–102. Burnaby, B.C.: Simon Fraser University.
• Mattina, Nancy J. (1996a). Aspect and Category in Okanagan Word Formation. Ottawa: National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1997. ISBN 061217011X
• Mattina, Nancy J. (1996b). Anticausatives in Okanagan. Paper presented at the 4th Annual University of Victoria Salish Morphosyntax, Victoria, B.C.
• Mattina, Nancy J. (1999a). Future in Colville-Okanagan Salish. ICSNL 34:215–230, Kamloops, B.C. [Note also (Nancy) Mattina 1999c.]
• Mattina, Nancy J. (1999b). Toward a History of the Inflectional Future in Colville-Okanagan Salish. University of California Santa Barbara Occasional Papers in Linguistics 17:27–42. Santa Barbara: University of California Santa Barbara.
• Mattina, Nancy J. (2004). smiyáw sucnmínctәxw: Coyote Proposes. Pp. 289–299 of Gerdts and Matthewson (eds.) 2004.
• O’Brien, Michael. (1967). A Phonology of Methow. ICSL 2, Seattle, Washington.
• Pattison, Lois C. (1978). Douglas Lake Okanagan: Phonology and Morphology. M.A. thesis, University of British Columbia.
• Petersen, Janet E. (1980). Colville Lexical Suffixes and Comparative Notes. MS.
• Ray, Verne F. (1932). The Sanpoil and Nespelem: Salish Peoples of Northwestern Washington. UWPA 5. Seattle.
• Schuhmacher, W. W. (1977). The Colville Name for Hawaii. IJAL 43:65–66.
• Spier, Leslie. (1938). The Sinkaietk or Southern Okanagan of Washington. General Series in Anthropology, no. 6. Menasha, Wisconsin: George Banta Publishing.
• Turner, Nancy J., Randy Bouchard, and Dorothy D. Kennedy. (1980). Ethnobotany of the Okanagan-Colville Indians of British Columbia and Washington. Occasional Paper Series 21. Victoria: British Columbia Provincial Museum.
• Vogt, Hans. (1940). Salishan Studies. Comparative Notes on Kalispel, Spokan, Colville and Coeur d’Alene. Oslo: Skrifter utgitt av Det Norske Videnskaps-Akademi i Oslo, II, Hist.-filos. Klasse, No. 2, Jacob Dybwad.
• Watkins, Donald. (1972). A Description of the Phonemes and Position Classes in the Morphology of Head of the Lake Okanagan. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Alberta, Edmonton.
• Watkins, Donald. (1974). A Boas original. IJAL 40:29–43.
• Young, Philip. (1971). A Phonology of Okanogan. M.A. thesis, University of Kansas.