Okanagan, Colville-Okanagan, or ( or ) is a Salish language that originated among the Indigenous peoples of the southern Interior Plateau. It was primarily spoken in the Okanagan and Columbia River basins of present-day Canada and the United States in the precolonial era. Following British, American, and Canadian colonization during the 19th century and the subsequent forced assimilation of Salishan peoples, the use of the language declined significantly.
Colville-Okanagan is considered extremely endangered. Approximately 50 fluent first language speakers remain, the majority of whom reside in British Columbia.Gordon, Raymond G. Ed. (2005). Salishan: Ethnologue . Ethnologue: Languages of the World, 15th ed. Retrieved April 14, 2014. The language is currently classified as moribund, with no first language speakers under the age of 50. Despite this, Colville-Okanagan remains the second-most spoken Salish language after Shuswap. Although it is rarely acquired as a first language, it is currently being learned as a second language by more than 40 adults and 35 children in Spokane, Washington, as well as by dozens of adults on the Colville Indian Reservation and within the Okanagan Valley of British Columbia.
History and description Colville-Okanagan descended from Proto Southern Interior Salish, a language originally spoken in the Columbia River Basin. Prior to European contact, the language had developed into three distinct dialects: Colville, Okanagan, and Lakes. These dialects exhibit a low degree of divergence, with variations primarily limited to minor differences in pronunciation rather than significant shifts in vocabulary or grammar.
The vast majority of the Colville-Okanagan lexicon is derived from Proto-Salish or Proto-Interior Salish. Some vocabulary is shared with or borrowed from neighboring Salish, Sahaptian, and Kutenai languages, while more recent loanwords have been adopted from English and French. Colville-Okanagan remained an exclusively oral language until the late 19th century, when missionaries and linguists began transcribing it to produce word lists, dictionaries, and grammars. Today, the language is written in Latin script using the American Phonetic Alphabet.
In the native tongue, the language is referred to as or . Historically, speakers occupied the northern Columbia Basin, ranging from the Methow River in the west to Kootenay Lake in the east, and extending north along the Columbia River, the Arrow Lakes, and the Slocan Valley. All -speaking bands are grouped under the ethnonym . This term is cognate of the Spokane-Kalispel word , which is the ethnonym for the Bitterroot Salish of Montana.
Colville-Okanagan is the heritage language of several groups, including:
British Columbia: The Westbank First Nation, Lower Similkameen, Upper Similkameen, Osoyoos, Penticton, Okanagan, and Upper Nicola Indian bands. Washington State: The Colville, Sanpoil, Okanogan, Lakes, Nespelem, and Methow bands of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation.
Words in the language are traditionally not capitalized. This practice reflects Colville-Okanagan ethics; as noted by practitioners, capitalization can imply a hierarchy of importance that contradicts the egalitarian values of their society.
Revitalization In 2012, CBC reported on a family teaching Okanagan to their children at home. Seven nonprofit organizations currently support Okanagan language acquisition and revitalization:
Paul Creek Language Association: Keremeos, British Columbia Language House: Penticton, British Columbia Centre: Penticton, British Columbia Osoyoos Indian Band Language House: Oliver, British Columbia Hearts Gathered Waterfall Montessori: Omak, Washington Salish School of Spokane: Spokane, Washington Inchelium Language and Culture Association: Inchelium, Washington
Revitalization in the United States
Revitalization efforts in the United States include early childhood instruction and intensive adult speaker training. The Concentrated Tribes of the Colville Reservation actively promote preservation by allocating local and federal funds for cultural projects. The Tribes' primary objectives include establishing three language programs, developing comprehensive dictionaries, providing translation services, and maintaining regular language classes with 30 or more consistent participants.The Confederated Tribes Of The Colville Reservation . Retrieved May 8, 2014
Salish School of Spokane The Salish School of Spokane (SSOS) () implements a comprehensive community revitalization strategy serving the Spokane metropolitan area. The school provides Okanagan immersion education for students ranging from one year old through the 9th grade. In classrooms for grades P-8, instruction is conducted entirely in Okanagan, covering core subjects such as mathematics, literacy, science, art, music and physical education. The curriculum is designed to foster full fluency by age 15, and students are expected to use the language exclusively while on campus. As of 2022, the school also provides intensive training for over 40 adults.
Twenty-eight staff members at SSOS are enrolled in the Salish Language Educator Development (SLED) program at SSOS. These staff members receive 90 minutes of immersion training daily as part of their work. Another 16 adults, parents of SSOS students, participate in paid afternoon and evening fluency track training. All SSOS parents commit to completing at least 60 hours of Okanagan language classes per year in order for their children to be eligible to attend the school. SSOS offers free, beginning language classes on evenings and weekends for SSOS parents and other community members. At Salish School of Spokane, there are 35 intergenerational pairs: 35 immersion school students who have at least one parent who is studying Okanagan in a fluency-track program.Salish School of Spokane. Retrieved May 1, 2014
Salish School of Spokane aims to increase the availability of educational material by maintaining a variety of audio resources and curricula to advance Okanagan revitalization. Along with these efforts, the school provides, develops and translates curricula. The Salish School works alongside organizations such as the Paul Creek Language Association, a nonprofit based in British Columbia, on the Curriculum Project. The Project aims to create foundational lesson plans from which language teachers can draw. The project is spearheaded by Christopher Parkin, and is translated primarily by the elder Sarah Peterson, with the additional help of Hazel Abrahamson and Herman Edwards.The Nsəlxcin Curriculum Project. (2011). Interior Salish: Enduring Languages of the Columbian Plateau. Retrieved May 8, 2014
Revitalization in Canada
The Certificate of Indigenous Language Revitalization is offered by the Centre in partnership with the University of Victoria, taught by linguist Maxine Baptiste. Additionally, the Centre offers a certification to become a Certified Early Childhood Education Assistant in partnership with Nicola Valley Institute of Technology. The certificate does not qualify one to teach at the secondary level, but does ensure employability in daycare and pre-K. These certificates aim to give potential teachers easy access to college credits from centers of higher learning like the University of Victoria, and potential education assistants can be involved in childhood education, thus establishing fluency in Okanagan early on.
The Centre also emphasizes its college readiness programs; many native students perform poorly in school and the high school dropout rate for Indigenous high schoolers is very high.
Additionally, a "language house" was developed in 2015 in British Columbia aiming to create 10 fluent Okanagan speakers in four years. In this program, participants spend 2000 hours over four years learning via a variety of different teaching methods, regular assessments, frequent visits from Elders, and full immersion. Following completion of the program in 2020, the Language House intended to expand by developing more language houses across the Okanagan, increasing its goal to creating 100 new speakers in the 2020 cohort.
UBCO Bachelor of Language Fluency In 2011, the BC Indigenous Adult and Higher Learning Association, in collaboration with the Nicola Valley Institute of Technology and Centre, initiated a new bachelor's degree program – the Bachelor of Language Fluency (BNLF) – offered through the University of British Columbia Okanagan to support Okanagan language learning and create new fluent speakers. The program has been led by associate professor Jeannette Armstrong since its inception. The BNLF was the first bachelor's degree of Indigenous language fluency offered in Canada and was developed as a model that could be duplicated across British Columbia.
The Bachelor of Language Fluency is a four-year program. During the first two years, students complete an Indigenous language diploma. During the third and fourth year of the program, students are assigned a capstone project at UBCO where they work in the community to promote language learning.
The first cohort of eight students graduated with a Bachelor's of Language Fluency in 2023. An additional 12 students were expected to graduate the following year, with around 100 students working towards graduation at the time.
Phonology Consonants Consonant inventory of Okanagan is as follows:
Bilabial Alveolar Palatal Velar Uvular/Pharyngeal Glottal plain lat. sib. plain labial plain labial Stop tenuis ~ ejective Fricative ~ Sonorant plain glottalic Trill plain glottalic
Vowels
The vowels found in Lakes are: , , , , and . Stress will fall only on the full vowels , , and in Okanagan.
Front Central Back Close Mid Open
Orthography Okanagan alphabets are always unicase, with no capital letters.
+Paul Creek Language Association alphabet Letter Letter name IPA English explanation Nsyilxcn example a as in the word father (it is you) c as in the word church (crash) c̓ as in the word cats (cold) ə as in the word elephant (goes) h as in the word happy (rat) i as in the word see (that/then) k as in the word kite (hand) k̓ is pronounced as a hard k (bad) kʷ as in the word queen kʷint (take) k̓ʷ is pronounced as a hard kʷ (strong) l as in the word love (happy) l̓ pronounced as an abruptly stopped l (friend) ł pronounced as a slurpy l (bounce/jump) ƛ̓ pronounced as a click tl out of the side of the mouth (stop) m as in the word mom (raccoon) m̓ pronounced as an abruptly ended m (what) n as in the word no (one) n̓ pronounce as an abruptly stopped n (later) p as in the word pop (when) p̓ pronounced as a popped p (brown) q pronounced as a k deep in the back of the throat (grandma) q̓ pronounced as a hard q (shoe) qʷ pronounced as a q with rounded lips (hat) q̓ʷ pronounced as a hard q with rounded lips (antler) r pronounced rolled on the tongue (make itself round) s as in the word sister (saskatoon/sarvis/June berry) t as in the word top (mother) t̓ pronounced as a hard t (ear) u as in the word soon (and) w as in the word walk (I saw it) w̓ pronounced as an abruptly ended w (auntie) x pronounced as a soft h in the back of the throat (girl) x̌ pronounced as a guttural h deep in the back of the throat (good) xʷ pronounced as an h in the back of the throat but with rounded lips (go) x̌ʷ pronounced as a guttural h in the back of the throat but with rounded lips (foam) y as in the word yellow (dark/purple) y̓ pronounced as an abruptly ended y (head)ʔis a breath stop in the back of the throat as in the word uh-oh (egg) ʕ pronounced as a short a deep in the back of the throat (angry) ʕ̓ pronounced as an abruptly ended ʕ (look) ʕʷ (?) pronounced as a nasally ow in the back of the throat (pray) The letters with acute accent , , , and are not counted as separate letters in this alphabet.