Tsimshian, known by its speakers as Sm'algya̱x, is a dialect of the Tsimshian language spoken in northwestern British Columbia and southeastern Alaska. Sm'algya̱x means literally 'real or true language'.

The linguist Tonya Stebbins estimated the number of speakers of Tsimshian in 2001 as around 400 and in 2003 as 200 or fewer (see references below). Whichever figure is more accurate, she added in 2003 that most speakers are over 70 in age and very few are under 50. About 50 of an ethnic population of 1,300 Tsimshian in Alaska speak the language.

Next to transcriptions in the IPA are the conventional orthography in angle brackets.

The unrounded mid back vowel can either be the long [a] or the short and slightly raised [ʌ] depending on context. John Asher Dunn assumes this vowel as the schwa [ə].

Underlining /a/ is optional for indicating the back long vowel, and fluent speakers will usually omit it.

Dunn's representation of the high back vowel seems to be slightly more forward than the IPA equivalent, since he uses the phonetic symbols [ɨ̈] or [ɪ̈].

First symbol is IPA, then the conventional orthography equivalent is given in brackets.

The glottalization diacritic ⟨ ' ⟩ may be switched to the other side of a velar segment depending on whether it falls pre-, post- or intervocalically. In speech, glottalized segments before a vowel will result in simultaneous realization of both, [kʼ]. Glottalized segments that follow vowels produce the glottalization first, then the consonant closure, [ʼk]. Intervocalically, the glottalization depends on where the stress falls. [ʼk] is pronounced after a stressed syllable, and [kʼ] is pronounced before a stress.