księżyc - Dxʷləšucid

[księżycowy]

And now begins an adventure with Dxʷləšucid! It̓s a language I̓ve been interested in for a long time. I especially like the phonology of the language (and all Salish languages for that matter).

I usually post notes on the phonology of the language in my first post, but I guess it’ll have to be piece-meal, as my textbook takes a few phonemes at a time. (General American values should be assumed unless noted.)
EDIT: IPA and whole alphabet added.

Lushootseed Alphabet:
<Letter> - /IPA/ - Description

Vowels:
<a> - /ɑ/ - like a in father
<ə> - /ə/ - like a in sofa
<i> - /i, eɪ/ - has two values*: 1. like i in machine 2. like ei in eight
<u> - /u, o/ - either as oo in book or oa in boat

Consonants:
<c> - /t͡s/ - like ts in hats
<c̓> - /t͡sˀ/ - glottal version of <c>
<č> - /t͡ʃ/ - like ch in church
<č̓> - /t͡ʃˀ/ - glottal version of <č>
<d> - /d/ - like d in dog
<dᶻ> - /d͡z/ - like dz in adze
<g> - /g/ - like g in good
<gʷ> - /gʷ/ - like gw in Welsh Gwendolyn
<h> - /h/ - like h in hook
<j̀> - /d͡ʒ/ - like j in jump
<k> - /k/ - like c in camp
<k̓> - /kˀ/ - glottal version of <k>
<kʷ> - /kʷ/ - like qu in queen
<k̓ʷ> - /kˀʷ/ - glottal version of <kʷ>
<l> - /l/ - like l in lamp
<l̓> - /lˀ/ - glottal version of <l>
<ɫ> - /ɫ/ - not found in English, like Mongolian л, Choctaw lh, Welsh ll
<ƛ̓> - /tɫˀ/ - not found in English, glottal <ɫ>, similar to Nahuatl <tl>
<m> - /m/ - like m in more
<m̓> - /mˀ/ - glottal version of m
<n> - /n/ - like n in nap
<n̓> - /nˀ/ - glottal version of n
<p> - /p/ - like p in pop
<p̓> - /pˀ/ - glottal p
<q> - /q/ - not found in English, a k deeper in the throat like Arabic qaf, Aleut q, Uzbek q
<q̓> - /qˀ/ - glottal <q>
<qʷ> - /qʷ/ - <q> with a w glide
<q̓ʷ> - /qˀʷ/ - glottal <qʷ>
<s> - /s/ - like s in soup
<š> - /ʃ/ - like sh in sheet
<t> - /t/ - like t in tempt
<t̓> - /tˀ/ - glottal <t>
<w> - /w/ - like w in wave
<w̓> - /wˀ/ - glottal <w>
<xʷ> - /xʷ/ - not found in English, like German/Gaelic/Polish <ch> with a w glide (like kʷ and gʷ)
<x̌> - /χ/ - like German/Gaelic/Polish <ch>
<x̌ʷ> - /xʷ/ - <x̌> with a w glide
<ʔ> - /ʔ/ - glottal stop

*Meaning is not affected by which pronunciation of i is used. Lushootseed speakers switch between the two with no problem, they are to be considered the same sound in Lushootseed.

The rest of lesson one goes over a basic question/answer word order:
stab əw̓ə tiʔiɫ. - What is this?
what (əw̓ə*) this

____ tiʔiɫ. - This is _____.
____ this

*Of particular note is the word əw̓ə, which is hard to translate into English. It adds "surprise" or "wonder" to the question. In careful speech it̓s pronounced haw̓əʔ.

[ceid donn]

That's the entire Lushootseed alphabet? Wow. That's pretty cool.

[Massimiliano B]

This is not the entire alphabet. It's only a part of it.



EDIT: That's now the entire alphabet

[Dormouse559]

I kind of wondered about that, since there are very clearly two <d>s, an <l>, and a <š> in the language name, but he didn't list <d>, <l>, or <š> in his post.

Also, what is the IPA for the vowels? English is, at best, not a great transcription system, particularly for vowels.

[księżycowy]

That's the entire Lushootseed alphabet? Wow. That's pretty cool.

See Massimiliano's answer:

This is not the entire alphabet. It's only a part of it.

As I thought I said in my above post, I'm not quite able to post the whole alphabet as it breaks down the alphabet into chucks in the first few lessons. Unless of course I feel like skipping ahead and all.

I kind of wondered about that, since there are very clearly two <d>s, an <l>, and a <š> in the language name, but he didn't list <d>, <l>, or <š> in his post.

See above.

Also, what is the IPA for the vowels? English is, at best, not a great transcription system, particularly for vowels.

I was going to add IPA, but I was lazy last night. I'll add it, and I might skip ahead and post the rest of the alphabet while I'm at it.

[księżycowy]

I was going to add IPA, but I was lazy last night. I'll add it, and I might skip ahead and post the rest of the alphabet while I'm at it.

Done!

I'm also a bit dissatisfied with the font format in Firefox (I'm not sure if it works better with any other browsers or not), so I'm including pdf notes too.

[księżycowy]

Glad to see quite a few of you are reading my humble thread btw.

Now back to business as usual, update time!

This time we'll be adding a little bit to the question form we looked at last time.

stab əw̓ə tiʔiɫ ʔal tə stuləkʷ.
what SUP that LOC the river
What is that in the river?

It̓s actually quite interesting how closely the Lushootseed is to the English here.

Special attention is needed with the word ʔal. ʔal is used to indicate location in a general way (in/on/at).

To answer the question we can say the same thing as last time:

spaʔc tiʔiɫ.
deer that
That̓s a deer.

How about a few exchanges from what we learned last time and so far this time?
stab əw̓ə tiʔiɫ.
What is that?
stuləkʷ tiʔiɫ.
That̓s a river.

stab əw̓ə tiʔiɫ ʔal tə šəgʷɫ.
What is that in/on the road?
q̓il̓bid tiʔiɫ.
That̓s a car.

We̓ll cover two last words, and then we̓ll be done with this update:
diʔayucid - on the other side of land (road/path)
diʔucid - on the other side of water (river/lake)

stab əw̓ə tiʔiɫ diʔayucid ʔal tə šəgʷɫ.
What is that on the other side of the road?

Even though I̓ve mostly been learning animal names and such I̓m loving Lushootseed! Should have learned it years ago!
I especially appreciate that fact that most lessons in my one textbook are nice and short!

I have Salish fever! Someone stop me before I start some Halkomelem, Coeur d̓Alene or Colville-Okanagan.

[Massimiliano B]

The Lushootseed words stab (what) and ʔal (locative preposition) are related to the Montana Salish/Kalispel/Spokane stem̓ and ̓l. These words come obviously from an ancient proto-Salish language.

[księżycowy]

I was waiting to see if you'd start posting some comparisons.

It was brought up in my textbook that Lushootseed used to use <m> and <n> where <b> and <d> are today. There was a fairly resent (last 100yrs or so) phonetic shift in the language. I thought that was an interesting note.

[księżycowy]

In similar (but non-Lushootseed) news, I just heard back from both the Shuswap and Coeur d'Alene tribes and will be ordering (or in the case of Coeur d'Alene already have ordered) some language materials. Yay!

[księżycowy]

Thanks to ILuvEire's idea in this thread: viewtopic.php?f=9&t=38978&start=0&st=0&sk=t&sd=a
I've been able to "fix" the font issue!

More notes to come in a few days!

[księżycowy]

Update time!

This time we'll go over a few various things.

In Lushootseed to represent the first person singular possessive (my), you add <d-> to the beginning of the word.
For example,
sk̓ʷuy
mother

dsk̓ʷuy
my mother

x̌altəd
pen

dx̌altəd
my pen

diɫ is a special word meaning "he/she/it is." It's used to refer to something that was just referenced.
For example,
gʷat əw̓ə tiʔiɫ ʔal tudiʔ.
who SUP that LOC man
Who is that man over there?

diɫ dbad tiʔiɫ.
He is my father, that [one]

Now let's look at two similar exchanges:
gʷat əw̓ə ti č̓ač̓as ʔal tiʔaʔ.
who SUP the_paticular_one child LOC here.
Who is the child right here?

diɫ dbədaʔ tiʔəʔ.
he_is my-own_child this
He is my child/son.



gʷat əw̓ə tsi č̓ač̓as ʔal tiʔaʔ.
Who is the (female) child here?

diɫ dbədaʔ tsiʔəʔ.
She is my child/daughter.

Notice the difference?
When a female is refered to in Lushootseed an <s> slips in there after the <t> in the following words: tiʔiɫ, ti, tə, tiʔəʔ, changing them into -> tsiʔiɫ, tsi, tsə, tsiʔəʔ respectively. However, this <s> marker should not be considered as a feminine marker, as it's use is more broad then that, as we shall see in later lessons, this is just one use for it.

Also note the the word ti means "the particular one," and is an emphatic form of tə.

You may have also noted by now that every sentence I've typed so far in Lushootseed is always lowercase. That is because the language is actually written like that. In order to represent a “capital” letter in Lushootseed, you underline it.

More to come! But for now enjoy this latest update.

[Massimiliano B]

The gender distinction of the demonstrative pronouns, articles and adverbs is very interesting!

gʷat əw̓ə tsi č̓ač̓as ʔal tiʔaʔ.
Who is the (female) child here?

diɫ dbədaʔ tsiʔəʔ.

Shouldn't the word tiʔaʔ in the question be tsiʔaʔ ?

And I've noticed that in the questions that word has an -a- ( tiʔaʔ ), while in the answer it is tsiʔəʔ (with a schwa). Is this a general rule?

[księżycowy]

As far as I'm aware the word tiʔaʔ does not get the -s- marker. They consistently wrote the word as tiʔaʔ in all the sentences regardless of the gender of the subject.

And tiʔaʔ and tiʔəʔ are different words:
tiʔaʔ - here, close by
tiʔəʔ - this (Northern dialects)

I suppose I should specify that for the time being I'm learning the Northern dialect(s) of Lushootseed.

Hope that helps!

[Massimiliano B]

Thank you!

Oh, and I see now that in your previous post you clearly wrote that tiʔaʔ and tiʔəʔ are different words:

gʷat əw̓ə ti č̓ač̓as ʔal tiʔaʔ.
who SUP the_paticular_one child LOC here.
Who is the child right here?

diɫ dbədaʔ tiʔəʔ.
he_is my-own_child this
He is my child/son.

[księżycowy]

Unfortunately, between work, grad studies and the new 2013 TAC I've little time for the rest of the Powwow. I'll still continue to translate the story when I have time though.