In their important article Pattern and Change in Halkomelem Salish Dialects Elmendorf and Suttles describe a language-community in a part of which a regular sound-shift takes place: a sub-dialect of Musqueam merges l and n into n (p. 7). The same article discusses the Chilliwack merger of l and n into l. A large number of lexical items are quoted from Cowichan, Musqueam and Chilliwack. This article provided the basis for Kuipers' paper On Divergence, Interaction and Merging of Salish Language-Communities, where Squamish material is added, necessitating consideration of yet another shift, viz. that of l to y in part of the Sq. lexicon: Sq. // Halk. correpsondences comprise 53 cases of l // l and 28 of y // l (now raised to 59 to 34). It is shown that shifts regular in particular dialects occur incidentally in others. The Suttles-Elmendorf article gave a close-up of the sociolinguistic situation which gave rise to such deviations, and it contained sufficient material for an analysis of the Sq. // Halk. relations, providing an explanation, for instance, of occasional n-forms in other Halk. dialects and in Sq. For Sq. the conclusion was that it is a mixed l-and-y language. Similar occasional deviations were shown to occur in the whole Salish area.
wa kawstm ta swa7ám̓cht ti syétsem hawḵ nilh es nswa7 This information shared with you is the intellectual property of the Squamish People.
By accessing Ta X̱ay Sxwimálatncht you agree to follow the terms of access, use, and reproduction defined by each individual and family for their records, cultural materials, and traditional knowledge. This information is found in the Access Conditions and Restrictions fields for all archival records and collections.
I will not use information from this website for commercial or publication purposes unless permission is obtained from Ta na wa Ns7éyx̱nitm ta Snew̓íyelh (Language & Cultural Affairs Department).