"The W̱SÁNEĆ School Board, together with the FirstVoices program for revitalizing Aboriginal languages, is working to teach a new generation to speak SENĆOŦEN" at the ȽÁU,WELṈEW̱ Tribal School.[5][6]
SENĆOŦEN texting, mobile app and portal
A Saanich texting app was released in 2012.[7] A SENĆOŦEN iPhone app was released in October 2011.[8] An online dictionary, phrasebook, and language learning portal is available at the First Voices SENĆOŦEN Community Portal.[9]
Phonology
Vowels
Saanich has no rounded vowels in native vocabulary. As in many languages, vowels are strongly affected by post-velar consonants.
^/i/ is [ɪ] adjacent to a post-velar or labio-postvelar consonant, or preceding /ʔ/.
^The rounded close high back vowel /u/ is found only in loanwords, such as CEPU (/kəˈpu/) "coat", from French[which?].
^/e/ is [e̽]—rarely as low as [ɛ]—adjacent to a post-velar or labio-postvelar consonant or preceding /ʔ/. It is closer—almost [i]—next to a lateral, post-alveolar, or /w/.
^/ə/ is generally mid central, but becomes [ɑ̽] adjacent to a postvelar or labio-postvelar, or a laryngeal obstruent, and especially between two such consonants, whether or not it is stressed. When unstressed, it is a close central [ɨ] following post-alveolars and before sonorants (including /ŋ/), and it is central rounded [ʉ] before the labialized obstruents.
^/ɑ/ is [ɐ] before /j/. It is also affected[clarification needed] by post-velars and /ʔ/.
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.
^ abDoes not occur in the Saanich dialect, but can occur phonemically in some of the other neighboring dialects of Northern Straits Salish, like Lummi, Sooke and Songish.
^The unrounded prevelar stop /k̟/ is found only in loanwords, as in CEPU (/k̟əˈpu/) above.
^ abcdefThe phonemic status of the glottalized sonorants/mˀnˀŋ̠ˀlˀjˀwˀ/ is not agreed upon. Some linguists analyse them as unit phonemes, others as sequences of a plain sonorant and a glottal stop/ʔ/. They do not occur in word-initial position. They tend to [ʔC] following a stressed vowel, [Cʔ] preceding a stressed vowel, and creaky voiced sonorants elsewhere.
The dentals are often written ⟨θ⟩, ⟨tθʼ⟩, but this is inaccurate, as they are laminalsibilants, [s̻,ts̻], and are only rarely interdental. The alveolars /s,ts,tsʼ/, on the other hand, are apical, as are all alveolars, including the laterals. The post-velars are often written ⟨q⟩, ⟨χ⟩, 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").
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.[10] It is a unicase alphabet, using only uppercase letters with the single exception of a lower-case s for the third person possessive suffix.[11]
The glottal stop/ʔ/ is not always indicated, but may be written with a spacing cedilla: ¸, or less formally with a comma: ,. When distinguished, the glottalized resonants are ⟨L¸ M¸ N¸ Ṉ¸ U¸ Y¸⟩.
The vowel /e/ is usually written Á, unless it occurs next to a post-velar consonant (/k̠k̠ʷk̠ʼk̠ʷʼx̠x̠ʷŋ̠ŋ̠ʷ/), where it is written A.
Example text
Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
Saanich:
EWENE SÁN E TŦE U, MEQ EȽTÁLṈEW̱ Ȼ SNI,S SQÍEŦ E TŦE XĆṈINS. U, XENENEȻEL TŦE U, MEQ EȽTÁLṈEW̱ E Ȼ SI,ÁM,TEṈS. ĆŚḰÁLEȻEN TŦE U, MEQ SÁN. Í, Ȼ S,Á,ITEṈS TŦE U, MEQ SÁN X̱EN,IṈ E TŦE SĆÁ,ĆE,S.
"All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood."
Unicode
In 2004, four characters from the SENĆOŦEN orthography were added to the Unicode standard.[12]
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).
ŦX̲ÉT 'shove' (nonactual)
→
ŦÉX̲T 'shoving' (actual)
ṮPÉX̲ 'scatter' (nonactual)
→
ṮÉPX̲ 'scattering' (actual)
ȾȽÉQ 'pinch' (nonactual)
→
ȾÉȽQ 'pinching' (actual)
This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (May 2008)
References
^There were 6 speakers of North Straits Salish in 8 of the 10 communities in 2014,[1] and 3 speakers of the only other surviving dialect in 2011.[2]
^W̱SÁNEĆ School Board; Swallow, Tye (30 November 2018). "Chapter 9 – Learning from the Homeland: An Emerging Process for Indigenizing Education". In Williams, Wanosts'a7 Lorna; Snively, Gloria (eds.). Knowing Home: Braiding Indigenous Science with Western Science, Book 2. ePublishing Services, University of Victoria Libraries. ÁLEṈENEȻ means "homeland" in the SENĆOŦEN language.
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 Hawaii).
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 [Claxton, Earl, Sr.]; & STOLȻEȽ [Elliot, John, Sr.]. (1994). Reef Net Technology of the Saltwater People. Brentwood Bay, B.C.: Saanich Indian School Board.
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