Saanich language

Saanich (also Sənčáθən, written as in Saanich orthography, ) 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 School Board, together with the FirstVoices program for revitalizing Aboriginal languages, is working to teach a new generation to speak " at the ȽÁU¸WELṈEW̱ Tribal School. The first Grade 12 class is scheduled to graduate in June 2026.

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.

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.

The dentals are often written , , but this is inaccurate, as they are laminal sibilants, , and are only rarely interdental. The alveolars , on the other hand, are apical, as are all alveolars, including the laterals. The post-velars are often written , , 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 for the third person possessive suffix.

The glottal stop is not always indicated, but may be written with a spacing cedilla: or less formally with a comma: . When they are distinguished, the glottalized resonants are written , , , , , , or likewise with a comma. The comma was the original orthography, but caused problems with text searches and the like; Saanich dictionaries, spell-check and increasingly common usage have switched to the cedilla.

The vowel is usually written , unless it occurs next to a post-velar consonant (), in which case it is written .

often surfaces as when stressed, and this may be reflected in the orthography. For instance, is spelled rather than phonemic * in the Saanich dictionary, and is rather than *.

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, and the barred K was accepted in 2024.L2/24-234r, p. 14-15
/ref>

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).

References

Bibliography

*Bill, Adriane; Cayou, Roxanne; & Jim, Jacquelin. (2003). ''NEȾE NEḰȺ SḴELÁLṈEW̱'' '' ne Green Tree'. Victoria, B.C.: First Peoples' Cultural Foundation & ȽÁU¸WELṈEW̱ Tribal School. .
* Mithun, Marianne. (1999). ''The Languages of Native North America''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (hbk); .
* 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 Hawaiʻi).
*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 laxton, Earl, Sr. & STOLȻEȽ lliot, John, Sr. (1994). ''Reef Net Technology of the Saltwater People''. Brentwood Bay, B.C.: Saanich Indian School Board.

External links

Timothy Montler's site


(1986)
** ttp://saanich.montler.net/Outline/1.htm Phonology
Morphology






(1991)
*https://www.smg.surrey.ac.uk/saanich-verbs/

(Chris Harvey's Native Language, Font & Keyboard)
SENĆOŦEN Welcome page
(First Voices)
W̱SÁNEĆ History & Territory with map.

{{DEFAULTSORT:Saanich Language
North Straits Salish languages
Indigenous languages of the Pacific Northwest Coast
First Nations languages in Canada