Tillamook language

Tillamook
Hutyáyu, Hutyéyu
Native to	United States
Region	Northwestern Oregon
Ethnicity	Tillamook, Siletz
Extinct	1972, with the death of Minnie Scovell[1]
Language family	Salishan Coast Salish Tillamook
Dialects	Tillamook Siletz
Language codes
ISO 639-3	til
Glottolog	till1254
Tillamook is classified as Extinct by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger [2]
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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]

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]

• 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.

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