Chimakuan languages

The Proto-Chimakuan sound system, as reconstructed by Powell,[1] contained three vowels, long and short, and lexical stress (accompanied by a higher pitch as in English). It had the consonants listed in the following table. In angle brackets ‹› following each IPA symbol are Powell’s own (Americanist) notation, which shall be used henceforth instead of the IPA. The plain voiceless stops and affricates were probably mildly aspirated as in modern Quileute.

The Proto-Chimakuan palato-alveolar fricative and affricates *š, *č, *č̓ developed as positional allophones of Pre-Proto-Chimakuan *xʷ, *kʷ, *k̓ʷ before the front vowel *i. This is why the Quileute and Chemakum reflexes of Proto-Chimakuan *xʷ, *kʷ, *k̓ʷ and *š, *č, *č̓ are largely in complementary distribution, though they are clearly phonemized in the modern languages (and probably already was in Late Proto-Chimakuan before it split) owing to loans and some irregular and analogical developments, especially in Chemakum.[2] Note that the palatalization and delabialization of Pre-Proto-Chimakuan *xʷ, *kʷ, *k̓ʷ did not cause a merger with *x, *k, *k̓ at any point.

The regular reflexes of the Proto-Chimakuan consonant phonemes in the attested Chimakuan languages are tabled below. Where the official Quileute orthography[3] or Boas’ Chemakum transcription[4] differ from the Proto-Chimakuan transcription (on whose IPA values, cf. table above), the orthographical representations have been given in angle brackets.

Glottalized resonants, common in neighboring language families like Salishan, do not occur in either daughter language synchronically, but they must be reconstructed to account for some seemingly irregular correspondances between the languages with respect to occurances of a glottal stop before resonant-reflexes, as well as language-internal evidence showing presence and absence of glottal stops around resonants in various related morphological forms, cf. Powell (1974) for more details.

Apart from the loss of glottalized resonants, Quileute has more-or-less kept the Proto-Chimakuan phonemic inventory unaltered. The only major change (sub-phonemic) is the infamous denasalization of *m (*m̓) and *n (*n̓) to (ʔ)b and (ʔ)d, respectively, ridding the language of nasal consonants except in certain archaïcizing narrative registers. Quileute also acquired the (presently rare) phonemes ƛ ‹tƚ› and g which occur primarily in loans but also a few words and morphemes of uncertain origin (and in the case of ƛ, phonemization of the biconsonantal sequence *t‿ƚ).

The development of Chemakum, on the other hand, has seen more significant changes. The Proto-Chimakuan palato-alveolar sibilants *š, *č, *č̓ were fronted and merged with the alveolar sibilants *s, *c, *c̓. Thereäfter the plain velars *x, *k, *k̓ were palatalized and affricated to š, č, č̓. The Proto-Chimakuan glides *y, *y̓, *w, *w̓ were subsequently (or concurrently) hardened to (ʔ)č and (ʔ)kʷ causing mergers (a few instances of the glides survive without hardening in Chimakum, e.g., in a demonstrative). A sub-table from the table above is reproduced below to illustrate these mergers more clearly. All of these developments have parallels in neighboring Salishan languages.

As an illustrative example, consider Chemakum čā́ʔᵃčis ‹tcā′atcis›, Quileute káʔyis ‘aunt’ < Proto-Chimakuan *káy̓is.

The vocalic system of Proto-Chimakuan is much harder to reconstruct as Boas’ Chemakum data don’t allow for an unambiguous reading of the phonemic vowels in that language. However, assuming a Quileute-like 3-vowel system with an extra parameter of vowel length, Powel was able to reconstruct a similar provisional vocalic inventory for the Proto-language: short *a, *e, *o, and long *a·, *e·, *o·. Stress was phonemic. In Quileute, the stress became fixed to the penultimate syllable, though subsequent changes made it somewhat unpredictable. Open syllables developed long vowels.