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Saanich
SENĆOŦEN, Sənčáθən
Pronunciation
Native to	Canada, United States
Region	British Columbia, Washington
Native speakers	ca. 5 (2014)
Language family	Salishan Coast Central Salishan North Straits Saanich
Writing system	SENĆOŦEN Sometimes NAPA
Official status
Official language in	Pauquachin Tsawout Tsartlip Tseycum
Language codes
ISO 639-3	(covered in Straits Salish)
Glottolog	saan1246
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

Saanich (also Sənčáθən, written as SENĆOŦEN in Saanich orthography and pronounced [sənˈt͡ʃɑs̪ən]) is the language of the First Nations Saanich people in the Pacific Northwest region of northwestern North America. Saanich is a Coast Salishan language in the Northern Straits dialect continuum, the varieties of which are closely related to the Klallam language.

Language revitalization efforts

"The W̱SÁNEĆ School Board, together with the FirstVoices program for revitalizing Aboriginal languages, is working to teach a new generation to speak SENĆOŦEN" at the ȽÁU,WELṈEW̱ Tribal School.

SENĆOŦEN texting, mobile app and portal

A Saanich texting app was released in 2012. A SENĆOŦEN iPhone app was released in October 2011. An online dictionary, phrasebook, and language learning portal is available at the First Voices SENĆOŦEN Community Portal.

Phonology

Vowels

Saanich has no rounded vowels in native vocabulary. As in many languages, vowels are strongly affected by post-velar consonants.

1. /i/ is adjacent to a post-velar or labio-postvelar consonant, or preceding /ʔ/.
2. The rounded close high back vowel /u/ is found only in loanwords, such as CEPU (/kəˈpu/) "coat", from French.
3. /e/ is —rarely as low as —adjacent to a post-velar or labio-postvelar consonant or preceding /ʔ/. It is closer—almost —next to a lateral, post-alveolar, or /w/.
4. /ə/ is generally mid central, but becomes adjacent to a postvelar or labio-postvelar, or a laryngeal obstruent, and especially between two such consonants, whether or not it is stressed. When unstressed, it is a close central following post-alveolars and before sonorants (including /ŋ/), and it is central rounded before the labialized obstruents.
5. /ɑ/ is before /j/. It is also affected by post-velars and /ʔ/.

Consonants

The following table includes all the sounds found in the North Straits dialects. No one dialect includes them all. Plosives are not aspirated, but are not voiced either. Ejectives have weak glottalization.

1. ^ Does not occur in the Saanich dialect, but can occur phonemically in some of the other neighboring dialects of Northern Straits Salish, like Lummi, Sooke and Songish.
2. The unrounded prevelar stop /k̟/ is found only in loanwords, as in CEPU (/k̟əˈpu/) above.
3. ^ The phonemic status of the glottalized sonorants /mˀ nˀ ŋ̠ˀ lˀ jˀ wˀ/ is not agreed upon. Some linguists analyse them as unit phonemes, others as sequences of a plain sonorant and a glottal stop /ʔ/. They do not occur in word-initial position. They tend to following a stressed vowel, preceding a stressed vowel, and creaky voiced sonorants elsewhere.

The dentals are often written ⟨θ⟩, ⟨tθʼ⟩, but this is inaccurate, as they are laminal sibilants, , and are only rarely interdental. The alveolars /s, ts, tsʼ/, on the other hand, are apical, as are all alveolars, including the laterals. The post-velars are often written ⟨q⟩, ⟨χ⟩, etc., but are not actually uvular.

Stress

Saanich stress is phonemic. Each full word has one stressed syllable, either in the root or in a suffix, the position of which is lexically determined. "Secondary stress" is sometimes described, but this is merely a way of distinguishing lexical schwas (with "secondary stress", like all other vowels in a word) from epenthetic schwas ("unstressed").

Writing system

The Saanich orthography was created by Dave Elliott in 1978, by using a typewriter to combine Latin characters with other marks to create new characters. It is a unicase alphabet, using only uppercase letters with the single exception of a lower-case s for the third person possessive suffix.

The glottal stop /ʔ/ is not always indicated, but may be written with a spacing cedilla: ¸, or less formally with a comma: ,. When distinguished, the glottalized resonants are ⟨L¸ M¸ N¸ Ṉ¸ U¸ Y¸⟩.

The vowel /e/ is usually written Á, unless it occurs next to a post-velar consonant (/k̠ k̠ʷ k̠ʼ k̠ʷʼ x̠ x̠ʷ ŋ̠ ŋ̠ʷ/), where it is written A.

Example text

Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

Unicode

In 2004, four characters from the SENĆOŦEN orthography were added to the Unicode standard.

Grammar

Metathesis

In Saanich, metathesis is used as a grammatical device to indicate "actual" aspect. The actual aspect is most often translated into English as a be …-ing progressive. The actual aspect is derived from the "nonactual" verb form by a CV → VC metathesis process (i.e. consonant metathesizes with vowel).

This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (May 2008)

References

1. There were 6 speakers of North Straits Salish in 8 of the 10 communities in 2014, and 3 speakers of the only other surviving dialect in 2011.
2. "Á,LEṈENEȻ ȽTE – Our Homeland". W̱SÁNEĆ Leadership Council. W̱SÁNEĆ Nation. Retrieved 7 November 2023.
3. "SENĆOŦEN Survival School". W̱SÁNEĆ School Board. W̱SÁNEĆ Nation. Retrieved 7 November 2023.
4. W̱SÁNEĆ School Board; Swallow, Tye (30 November 2018). "Chapter 9 – Learning from the Homeland: An Emerging Process for Indigenizing Education". In Williams, Wanosts'a7 Lorna; Snively, Gloria (eds.). Knowing Home: Braiding Indigenous Science with Western Science, Book 2. ePublishing Services, University of Victoria Libraries. ÁLEṈENEȻ means "homeland" in the SENĆOŦEN language.
5. "Daily Fact #9: There are over 50 First Nations languages in Canada". Miss Teen Southern British Columbia. Archived from the original on 2017-11-27. Retrieved 2013-06-02.
6. "ȽÁU, WELṈEW̱ Tribal School". Archived from the original on 2 January 2013. Retrieved 17 April 2012.
7. Renee Lewis (2012-08-02). "Indigenous tap new app to save old languages". Al Jazeera English. Retrieved 2012-08-21.
8. "FirstVoices Apps". FirstVoices. Retrieved 2012-10-04.
9. "FirstVoices: SENĆOŦEN Community Portal". Retrieved 2012-10-04.
10. Dave Elliott and the SENÇOÎEN Alphabet
11. Bill, Cayou & Jim (2003: 15)
12. Elliot, John (May 5, 2004). "Proposal to Add Four SENĆOŦEN Latin Charaters" (PDF). Retrieved November 22, 2024.

Bibliography

• Bill, Adriane; Cayou, Roxanne; & Jim, Jacquelin. (2003). NEȾE NEḰȺ SḴELÁLṈEW̲ . Victoria, B.C.: First Peoples' Cultural Foundation & ȽÁU,WELṈEW̲ Tribal School. ISBN 1-4120-0626-0.
• Mithun, Marianne. (1999). The Languages of Native North America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-23228-7 (hbk); ISBN 0-521-29875-X.
• Montler, Timothy. (1986). An Outline of the Morphology and Phonology of Saanich, North Straits Salish. Occasional Papers in Linguistics (No. 4). Missoula, MT: University of Montana Linguistics Laboratory. (Web version of the author's PhD dissertation, University of Hawaii).
• Montler, Timothy. (1996). Languages and Dialects in Straits Salishan. Proceedings of the International Conference on Salish and Neighboring Languages, 31, 249–256.
• Montler, Timothy. (1999). Language and Dialect Variation in Straits Salishan. Anthropological Linguistics, 41 (4), 462–502.
• Montler, Timothy. (2018). SENĆOŦEN: A Dictionary of the Saanich Language. Seattle: University of Washington Press.
• Thompson, Laurence; Thompson, M. Terry; & Efrat, Barbara. (1974). Some Phonological Developments in Straits Salish. International Journal of American Linguistics, 40, 182–196.
• YELḰÁTȾE ; & STOLȻEȽ . (1994). Reef Net Technology of the Saltwater People. Brentwood Bay, B.C.: Saanich Indian School Board.

External links

• Timothy Montler's site
  • An Outline of the Morphology and Phonology of Saanich, North Straits Salish (1986)
  • Phonology
  • Morphology
  • Sample text
  • How to pronounce SENĆOŦEN
  • Saanich Classified Word List (1991)
• https://www.smg.surrey.ac.uk/saanich-verbs/
• Saanich Indian School Board
• SENĆOŦEN (Saanich, Northern Straits Salish) (Chris Harvey's Native Language, Font & Keyboard)
• SENĆOŦEN Welcome page (First Voices)
• W̱SÁNEĆ History & Territory with map.

• North Straits Salish languages
• Indigenous languages of the Pacific Northwest Coast
• First Nations languages in Canada