| Also Known As: Secwepemc
Description:
The Shuswap language, known to its speakers as Secwepemctsín [ʃəxwəpəmxˈtʃin], is the traditional language of the Shuswap people (Secwépemc [ʃəˈxwɛpəmx]) of British Columbia. An endangered language, Shuswap is spoken mainly in the southern interior of British Columbia between the Fraser River and the Rocky Mountains. There are however over 1600 remaining speakers in Canada according to the most recent census in 2006.
Shuswap is the northernmost of the Interior Salish languages, which are spoken in Canada and the Pacific Northwest of the United States. Two eastern and five western dialects of Shuswap are recognized: Kinbasket and Shuswap Lake (eastern); Canim Lake, Chu Chua, Deadman's Creek-Kamloops, Fraser River, and Pavilion-Bonaparte (western). The other northern Interior Salish languages are St'at'imcets and Nlaka'pamux.
Most of the material in this article is from Kuipers (1974).
The Shuswap language has many consonants which the Roman alphabet is typically not used to represent. Two systems of representing Shuswap sounds are in use. One is the system used in Kuipers’ 298 page monograph on the language. It uses some letters which are not part of the Roman alphabet. The other..... full article at Wikipedia |
