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• 1 2018-07-20T16:52:41-07:00 The Place of Klallam in the Salishan Language Family 16 plain 2021-07-14T07:37:00-07:00 The Klallam language (nəxʷsƛ̕ay̕əmúcən) has always been spoken on the north shore of Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, from the Strait of Juan de Fuca inland into the mountains. It has also been spoken in some other areas, such as Becher Bay on the south of Vancouver Island, and on some nearby smaller islands. It is one language in a large family of Native American languages called Salishan or Salish languages that have been spoken in what is now Washington, British Columbia, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana.

  The accompanying diagram shows a ‘family tree’ of Salishan languages. Each of the languages and dialects has its own native name; the names of the languages and dialects shown here are the those that traditionally appear in the linguistic and anthropological literature. This tree is based on the organization proposed by Thompson (1979). Another proposal (Kuipers 2002) places Bella Coola with the Coast branch.

  Although Klallam is a separate language, it is very closely related to the dialects called Northern Straits:  Saanich, Samish, Lummi, Songish, and Sooke. Saanich, Songish, and Sooke have been spoken on southern Vancouver Island and neighboring smaller islands. Lummi and Samish have been spoken near Bellingham on the US side of the border. Most of the words in Klallam are the same or very similar to words in the Northern Straits dialects. A speaker of Lummi, for example, could learn to understand Klallam very easily, and vice versa.

  The Klallam language itself has several dialects. Elwha Klallam, Becher Bay Klallam, Jamestown Klallam, and Little Boston Klallam are all slightly different from one another in the pronunciation and usage of some words.