Upper Chinook language

Upper Chinook
Kiksht
Native to	United States
Region	Columbia River
Extinct	11 July 2012, with the death of Gladys Thompson[1]
Language family	Chinookan Upper Chinook
Language codes
ISO 639-3	wac
Glottolog	wasc1239
ELP	Wasco-Wishram

Upper Chinook, endonym Kiksht,^[2] also known as Columbia Chinook, and Wasco-Wishram after its last surviving dialect, is a recently extinct language of the US Pacific Northwest. It had 69 speakers in 1990, of whom 7 were monolingual: five Wasco^[3] and two Wishram. In 2001, there were five remaining speakers of Wasco.^[4]

The last fully fluent speaker of Kiksht, Gladys Thompson, died in July 2012.^[1] She had been honored for her work by the Oregon Legislature in 2007.^[5][6][7] Two new speakers were teaching Kiksht at the Warm Springs Indian Reservation in 2006.^[8] The Northwest Indian Language Institute of the University of Oregon formed a partnership to teach Kiksht and Numu in the Warm Springs schools.^[9][10] Audio and video files of Kiksht are available at the Endangered Languages Archive.^[11]

The last fluent speaker of the Wasco-Wishram dialect was Madeline Brunoe McInturff, and she died on 11 July 2006 at the age of 91.^[12]

Dialects

• Multnomah, once spoken on Sauvie Island and in the Portland area in northwestern Oregon
• Kiksht
  • Watlala or Watlalla, also known as Cascades, now extinct (two groups, one on each side of the Columbia River; the Oregon group were called Gahlawaihih [Curtis]).
  • Hood River, now extinct (spoken by the Hood River Band of the Hood River Wasco in Oregon, also known as Ninuhltidih [Curtis] or Kwikwulit [Mooney])
  • White Salmon, now extinct (spoken by the White Salmon River Band of Wishram in Washington)
  • Wasco-Wishram (the Wishram lived north of the Columbia River in Washington and the kin Wasco lived south of the same river in Oregon)
  • Clackamas, now extinct, was spoken in northwestern Oregon along the Clackamas and Sandy rivers.

Kathlamet has been classified as an additional dialect; it was not mutually intelligible.

Phonology

Consonants

		Labial	Alveolar			Palatal	Velar		Uvular		Glottal
			plain	sibilant	lateral		plain	labial	plain	labial
Nasal		m	n
Plosive/ Affricate	plain	p	t	ts	tɬ	tʃ	k	kʷ	q	qʷ	ʔ
	ejective	pʼ	tʼ	tsʼ	tɬʼ	tʃʼ	kʼ	kʷʼ	qʼ	qʷʼ
	voiced	b	d				ɡ	ɡʷ
Continuant	voiceless			s	ɬ	ʃ	x	xʷ	χ	χʷ	h
	voiced	w			l	j	ɣ	ɣʷ

Vowels in Kiksht are as follows: /u a i ɛ ə/.

References

1. Kristian Foden-Vencil (2012-07-17). "Last Fluent Speaker Of Oregon Tribal Language 'Kiksht' Dies". Oregon Public Broadcasting. Archived from the original on 2019-10-10. Retrieved 2013-02-26.
2. Leonard, Wesley Y.; Haynes, Erin (December 2010). "Making "collaboration" collaborative: An examination of perspectives that frame linguistic field research". Language Documentation & Conservation. 4: 269–293. hdl:10125/4482. ISSN 1934-5275.
3. Culture: Language. The Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs Reservation of Oregon. 2009 (retrieved 9 April 2009)
4. "Lewis & Clark—Tribes—Wasco Indians". National Geographic. Archived from the original on December 22, 2002. Retrieved 2013-02-25.
5. Last Fluent Speaker of Kiksht Dies
6. "Honors Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs elder Gladys Miller Thompson for her contribution to preserving Native languages of Oregon". 74th OREGON LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY--2007 Regular Session. Retrieved 2013-02-26.
7. "Zelma Smith, 1926-2010". Spilyay Tymoo, Coyote News, the Newspaper of the Warm Springs Reservation. Retrieved 2013-02-25.
8. Keith Chu (2006-07-30). "New speakers try to save language". The Bulletin. Bend, OR. Retrieved 2013-02-25.
9. Joanne B. Mulcahy (2005). "Warm Springs: A Convergence of Cultures" (Oregon History Project). Retrieved 2013-02-26.
10. Aaron Clark. "USA: Tribes Strive to Save Native Tongues". GALDU, Resource Centre for the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Retrieved 2013-02-26.
11. Nariyo Kono. "Conversational Kiksht". Endangered Languages Archive. Retrieved 2013-02-25.
12. "Holy road: Speaker of Wasco language dead at 91 - Indian Country Media Network". indiancountrymedianetwork.com. Retrieved 2017-05-24.

Bibliography

• Sapir, Edward; Curtin, Jeremiah (1909). Wishram texts, together with Wasco tales and myths. E.J. Brill. ASIN: B000855RIW.
• Dyk, Walter (1933). A Grammar of Wishram. New Haven: Yale University: Yale University Press.

External links

• Nariyo Kono. "Conversational Kiksht". Endangered Languages Archive. Retrieved 2013-02-25.
• Kiksht - Washco Wishram - Upper Chinook videos, YouTube
• Wasco-Wishram Indian Language (Upper Chinook, Kiksht, Clackamas) at native-languages.org
• Digital Kiksht, video about digitizing Kiksht language materials
• Audio of spoken Kiksht