Tillamook is an

extinct Extinction is the termination of an organism by the death of its Endling, last member. A taxon may become Functional extinction, functionally extinct before the death of its last member if it loses the capacity to Reproduction, reproduce and ...

Salishan The Salishan languages ( ), also known as the Salish languages ( ), are a family of languages found in the Pacific Northwest in North America, namely the Canadian province of British Columbia and the American states of Washington, Oregon, Ida ...

language, formerly spoken by the

Tillamook people The Tillamook are a Native Americans in the United States, Native American tribe from coastal Oregon of the Salishan languages, Salish linguistic group. The name "Tillamook" is a Chinook language term meaning "people of he villageNekelim (or N ...

in northwestern

Oregon Oregon ( , ) is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is a part of the Western U.S., with the Columbia River delineating much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while t ...

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. The last fluent speaker was Minnie Scovell who died in 1972. In an effort to prevent the language from being lost, a group of researchers from the

University of Hawaii A university () is an educational institution, institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several Discipline (academia), academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly ...

interviewed the few remaining Tillamook speakers and created a 120-page dictionary.

Phonology

Vowels

Consonants

Internal rounding

The so-called "rounded" consonants (traditionally marked with the diacritic , but here indicated with ), including rounded vowels and (), are not actually

labialized Labialization is a secondary articulatory feature of sounds in some languages. Labialized sounds involve the lips while the remainder of the oral cavity produces another sound. The term is normally restricted to consonants. When vowels invol ...

. The acoustic effect of labialization is created entirely inside the mouth by cupping the tongue (

sulcalization Sulcalization (from 'groove'), also called internal rounding, in phonetics, is the pronunciation of a sound, typically a sibilant consonant, such as English and , with a deep ''groove'' running along the back of the tongue that focuses the airs ...

). Uvulars with this distinctive internal rounding have "a kind of timbre" while "rounded" front velars have coloring. These contrast and oppose otherwise very similar segments having or coloring—the "unrounded" consonants. is also formed with this internal rounding instead of true

labialization Labialization is a secondary articulatory feature of sounds in some languages. Labialized sounds involve the lips while the remainder of the oral cavity produces another sound. The term is normally restricted to consonants. When vowels invol ...

, making it akin to . So are vowel sounds formerly written as or , which are best characterized as the diphthong with increasing internal rounding.

Notes

Bibliography

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External links

University of Oregon: The Tillamook
*
OLAC resources in and about the Tillamook language
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tillamook Language Coast Salish languages Indigenous languages of Oregon Indigenous languages of the Pacific Northwest Coast Extinct languages of North America Languages extinct in the 1970s 1970s disestablishments in Oregon