Twana language

Twana
Native to United States
Region East of Puget Sound, Washington state
Ethnicity 350 Twana (1977)[1]
Extinct 1980[1]
Language codes
ISO 639-3 twa
Glottolog twan1247[2]

The Twana language, also known as Skokomish from one of the tribes that spoke it, belongs to the Salishan family of Native American languages. It is believed by some elders within the Skokomish community (such as Bruce Subiyay Miller) that the language branched off from Lushootseed (dxwəlšucid) because of the region-wide tradition of not speaking the name of someone who died for a year after their death. Substitute words were found in their place and often became normalizing in the community, generating differences from one community to the next. Subiyay speculated that this process increased the drift rate between languages and separated Twana firmly from xwəlšucid (Lushootseed).

The last fluent speaker died in 1980.[1]

The name "Skokomish" comes from the Twana sqʷuqʷóʔbəš, also spelled sqWuqWu'b3sH, and meaning "river people" or "people of the river".[3][4][5]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 Twana at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
  2. ↑ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin; Bank, Sebastian, eds. (2016). "Twana". Glottolog 2.7. Jena: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  3. ↑ Bright, William (2004). Native American Placenames of the United States. University of Oklahoma Press. p. 452. ISBN 978-0-8061-3598-4. Retrieved 3 November 2010.
  4. ↑ Wray, Jacilee (2003). "Skokomish: Twana Descendants". Native Peoples of the Olympic Peninsula: Who We Are. University of Oklahoma Press. p. 65. ISBN 978-0-8061-3552-6. Retrieved 3 November 2010.
  5. ↑ The Skokomish Tribal Nation


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