Oowekyala dialect

Oowekyala
Wuikyala
Region Northern Central Coast Regional District, British Columbia, Canada
Ethnicity Wuikinuxv people
Native speakers
6 (2014, FPCC)[1]
Wakashan
Language codes
ISO 639-3 –
Glottolog oowe1239[2]

Oowekyala /uːˈwiːkjələ/,[3] also Ooweekeeno and Wuikyala in the language itself, is a dialect (or a sublanguage) of Heiltsuk-Oowekyala, a Northern Wakashan language spoken around Rivers Inlet and Owikeno Lake in the Central Coast region of the Canadian province of British Columbia, spoken by the Wuikinuxv, whose government is the Wuikinuxv Nation.

The name is also spelled Wuikala, Wuikenukv, Oweekeno, Wikeno, Owikeno, Oowekeeno, Oweekano, Awikenox, Oowek'yala, Oweek'ala.

Sounds

Consonants

The 45 consonants of Oowekyala:

Labial Alveolar Velar Uvular Glottal
centrallateralsibilant plainlabial plainlabial
Plosive voiced b ddl[4]dz ɡɡʷ bɢʷ
aspirated pʰ tʰtɬʰtsʰ kʰkʷʰ qʰqʷʰ
ejective pʼ tʼtɬʼtsʼ kʼkʷʼ qʼqʷʼ
Fricative ɬs xxʷ χχʷ
Sonorant short m nɬ jw ɦ
long mː nːlː
glottalized mˀ nˀlˀ jˀwˀ ʔ

Phonologically, affricates are treated as stops, and nasals and approximants are treated as sonorants. Additionally, /ɦ/ and /ʔ/ are treated as sonorants.

Vowels

Oowekyala has phonemic short, long, and glottalized vowels.:

  Front Central Back
short long glottalized short long glottalized short long glottalized
Close i iː iË€       u uː uË€
Mid       É™          
Open       É¡ aː aË€      

Syllables

Oowekyala, like Nuxálk (Bella Coola), allows long sequences of obstruents, as in the following 7-obstruent word:

[tÍ¡sʼkʷʼχtÊ°t͡ɬʰkÊ°tÍ¡sÊ°]  'the invisible one here-with-me will be short'   (Howe 2000: 5)

References

  1. ↑ Heiltsuk at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
  2. ↑ Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Ooweekeeno". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
  3. ↑ William C. Sturtevant, 1978. Handbook of North American Indians: Northwest Coast
  4. ↑ Not [dɮ]. Howe (2000:24)

External links

Bibliography

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