Information about the Chimakuan (or Chemakuan) languages

Where are the Chimakuan languages spoken?

These languages are spoken by indigenous peoples of North America in the Olympic Peninsula region of Washington State on the West Coast of the United States.

Who speaks these languages?

The speakers of Chimakuan languages are members of “First Nations” in North America who inhabited the region long before Europeans arrived and before the creation of the United States and Canada. Nowadays, most speakers live on the Quileute Reservation in Washington State, primarily in the town of La Push.

Total number of speakers (estimated):

Not available.

Classification

The Chimakuan family of languages currently has only one living language.

Chemakum (alternate name: Chimakum): extinct

Quileute (alternate name: Quillayute): extinct according to UNESCO and approximately 10 speakers according to SIL

Comments on the classification of Chimakuan languages:

The term “Mosan Family” describes a group of languages including the Salish, Wakashan and Chimakuan languages. However, the similarities between these three language families are more often attributed to borrowing between the languages due to their geographic proximity rather than an “ancestor language” from which the three language families would have descended.

Here we use the classification proposed by Mithun (1999) which is widely accepted.

Are Chimakuan languages in danger?

Yes, this family as a whole is in great danger of extinction if not already extinct. In fact, the last native speaker of Chemakum disappeared in the 1940s. The number of native speakers of Quileute is less well defined, but it is certainly very low: UNESCO considers Quileute as an extinct language, and SIL cites a dozen speakers who are very old. As a result, if Quileute is not already extinct, it probably will be in years to come. To avoid this outcome a Quileute revitalization project has been in place since 2007:

Sources:

Mithun, Marianne The languages of Native North America. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. (1999).

Campbell, Lyle. American Indian languages: the historical linguistics of Native America. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (1997)

http://www.native-languages.org/

The site of the Quileute Nation:

http://www.quileutenation.org/