Coeur d'Alene (), known to its speakers as , is a Salishan language. It was spoken by only two of the 800 individuals in the Coeur d'Alene Tribe on the Coeur d'Alene Reservation in northern Idaho, United States in 1999. It is considered an endangered language. However, as of 2014, two elders in their 90s remain who grew up with Cœur d'Alène as their first language, and the use of the language is spreading among all age groups.

The Coeur d'Alene Names-Places Project visits geographic sites on the reservation recording video, audio, and still photos of Tribal elders who describe the site in both English and Coeur d'Alene languages.

The Coeur d'Alene Tribal Language Program and elders have actively promoted the use of the language, and have created computer sounds that use Snchitsu’umshtsn phrases. Radio station KWIS FM 88.3 in Plummer, Idaho, offers programming to preserve the Snchitsu’umshtsn language.

Lawrence Nicodemus, "a retired judge and former tribal council member," became a scholar of the language. He had worked with linguist Gladys Reichard in his youth, and went on to create a grammar, dictionary, and instructional materials. Nicodemus taught language classes until his death at age 94. The Coeur d'Alene Tribe's language program has "taught classes and worked with the language department to record more than 2,000 hours of audio and video." Classes are also available at North Idaho College.

Phonology Consonants In Coeur d'Alene, there are eleven places of articulation: labial, alveolar, palatoalveolar, lateral, labiovelar, uvular, labio-uvular, coronal pharyngeal, pharyngeal, labiopharyngeal, and laryngeal. Doak identifies six manners of articulation: plain and glottalized voiceless stops and affricates, voiced stops and affricate, voiceless fricatives, and plain and glottalized resonants.Bischoff, S. (2011). Formal notes on Coeur d'Alene clause structure. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholar Press.

Labial Alveolar Palatal Velar Uvular/Pharyngeal Glottal Stop Fricative Sonorant Rhotic

Vowels +Vowel inventory Front Central Back High Mid () Low

Orthography

There are three different orthographies, giving the interpretations of previous scholarly works. Coeur d'Alene examples have been taken from the works of Nicodemus et al.Nicodemus, L., Matt, W., Hess, R., Sobbing, G., Wagner, J. M., & Allen, D. (2000). Snchitsu’umshtsn: Coeur d'Alene reference book. Plummer, ID: Coeur d'Alene Tribe. as well as from the COLRC website.Bischoff, S., Doak, I., Fountain, A., Ivens, J., & Vincent, A. (2013). The Coeur d'Alene Online Language Resource Center. Retrieved from The Coeur d'Alene Online Language Resource Center: http://lasrv01.ipfw.edu/COLRC/

+Coeur d'Alene Orthographies (Doak and Montler 2000 modified)Salishan/LPONicodemus/BitarReichardEnglish examples Coeur d'Alene examplesNicodemus Translation aaafatherangel eeä, êyestwo Iiimachinefive ooɔlawQuit it! uuuJupiterten əno formᴇ,ι, ụsofa pppspillfather pʼpʼpʼbitterroot bbbboybeans mmmmomfour mʼʼmmʼ wwwwagonhe/she shouted wʼʼwwʼcougar tttstarwhat tʼtʼtʼsugar ddddogtomatoes nnnnowmother nʼʼnnʼhotel ssssunwater ctststsitsi flyseven cʼtsʼts’salt/sour šshcshellhe/she worked ǰjdjjarhe/she was stabbed čchtcchurchmother’s mother čʼch’tc’ yyyyardenjoyment yʼʼyyʼsleeping [Noun] ɡʷɡw, ɡuɡw, ɡulinguisthe/she saw kʷkw, k, ku, kokʷ, kuqueenmorning kʼʷkʼw, kʼu, kʼokʼʷ, kʼu, kʼụ xʷkhw, khu, khoxʷ, xuhouse qqqfather’s mother q’q’q’ qʷqw, qu, qoqʷshe/she drank qʼʷq’w, qʼu, qʼoqʼʷ, qʼuCataldo x̣qhx̣ x̣ʷqhw, qhu, qhox̣ʷduck llllikeno/not lʼʼllʼ ɬłł rrrfardifficult rʼʼrrʼ ʕ(, )Rantelope ʕʼʼ(, ʼ)Rʼit dripped ʕʷ(w, (urʷhe/she vomited ʕʼʷʼ(w, uʼ(ṛʼʷ ʔʼʼuh-uhhe/she sobbed hhhhenmy name

Notes on writing systems LPO, the linguistic phonetic orthography, is a third orthographic system based on a variant of the American Phonetic Alphabet (with some symbols shared with the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)). Many Salishan scholars, such as Lyon Greenwood, call the LPO orthography the Salishan orthography. This system will also be used by the Coeur d'Alene Dictionaries Project in conjunction with the Bitar system.Doak, I. G., & Montler, T. (2000). Orthography, lexicography and language change. Proceedings of the fourth FEL Conference. Charlotte, NC: Foundation for Endangered Languages. Bitar is another name referring to Lawrence Nicodemus's orthography. Lawrence Nicodemus was one of Gladys Reichard's language consultants, and in collaboration with Joseph Bitar of the Southwest Research Associates of Albuquerque, he created a second orthography, which is less accurate phonetically but reflects the native speaker's interpretation of the sounds, symbols, and words of Coeur d'Alene. Gladys Reichard and James Teit, students of Franz Boas. Reichard conducted early scholarly work of the Coeur d'Alene. Reichard and Teit developed an orthographic system, slightly varied from the Boasian system, which was consistent with phonetic transcriptions of native speakers Reichard worked with as well as consistent with transcriptions from Teit's previous data. This system has come to be known as the Reichard orthography. In Doak and Montler, is used in the LPO orthography, equated with . DoakDoak, I. G. (1997). Coeur d'Alene grammatical relations (Doctorate dissertation). Austin, TX: University of Texas at Austin. explains that ranges freely between , and with being the most common variant. This gives clarity to her variance in representing the sound in vowel inventories of her website and her dissertation as or . Doak and Montler, Doak, and DoakDoak, I. G., & Montler, T. (2006). Coeur d'Alene Phonology. 17 July 2006. Web. Jan. 2015. Online: http://ivydoak.com/Coeurd'Alene/grammar/crphon.htm use the notation while LyonLyon, J. (2005). An edition of Snchitsu’umshtsn: volume II: A root dictionary (Master's thesis). Missoula, MT: University of Montana. uses to indicate the same phoneme and orthographic symbol. OkanaganPattison, Lois C. (1978). Douglas Lake Okanagan: Phonology and Morphology. M.A. thesis, University of British Columbia. also utilizes the wedge notation for this same phoneme: . Standard Salishan (LPO) and Doak uses the notation while Lyon, and Greenwood,Lyon, J., & Greene-Wood, R. (2007). Lawrence Nicodemus's Coeur d'Alene dictionary in root format. Missoula, MT: UMOPL. Nicodemus et al., and Reichard used the notation in consonant inventories and orthographies in reference to the same sound which Doak describes as bilateral.

Morphology and syntax

Coeur d'Alene is a morphosyntactically polysynthetic language. In Coeur d'Alene, a full clause can be expressed by affixing pronominal arguments and morphemes expressing aspect, transitivity and tense onto one verb stem (Doak, 1997, p. 38). These affixes are discussed below.

Basic intransitive clause structure The basic format of an intransitive thought as Doak identifies can be found below: Subject – Aspect – Root

Intransitive person markers The intransitive subjects of Coeur d'Alene appear as clitics (Doak, 1997, p. 53), and their forms as well as examples from Doak (1997, p. 53-54) are found below:

+Intransitive Subject Clitics Singular Plural 1st Person Nom. čnč 2nd Person Nom. kʷukʷup 3rd Person Abs. Ø (null)Ø (null) (-ilš)

+ Example Singular Plural 1st person 2nd person 3rd person

Plural –ilš The parentheses used around the suffix -ilš are meant to show that it is optional. This third person plural, optional morpheme is used to give clarity that something within the sentence has plurality, whether it is the subject or the object is a matter of context. To illustrate this more clearly, Doak (1997, p. 59) gives the example:

Determiners There are three determiners and one oblique marker that help specify participants by joining clauses and their main predicates. Doak (1997, p. 46-48).

Det label example xʷε det₁ examples 2,3,4 cε det₂ example 4 ɬε det₃ example 1 ʔε oblique example 3

As a general rule, adjuncts that are introduced with a determiner specify the absolutive, accusative and nominative pronominal arguments, while both the determiner and oblique marker introduce ergative arguments. When an indefinite participant is not indicated on the predicate, the oblique alone is used to indicate this participant. — Doak (1997, p. vii)

Examples:

Basic transitive clause structure The construction of a transitive sentence in Coeur d'Alene is:

Aspect – Root – Transitivizer – Object – Subject

Transitivizers There are three types of transitives in Coeur d'Alene: simple, causative, and applicative. The different transitivizers in Coeur d'Alene are listed below as described by Bischoff (2011, p. 27 modified).

Transitivizing Morphemes Simple -t -nt Causative -st(u) Applicative -łt -tułt -š(i)t

The lone -t and directive -nt transitivizers The lone -t (-t) and the directive transitivizer -nt (-dt) are the most commonly used in Coeur d'Alene (Bischoff, 2011, p. 27). Doak (1997, p. 115) suggests that these two are alternative forms of one another with the lone -t appearing before a limited number of roots. The person markers that follow these forms are the same in function and form: agent subjects and patient objects. Most often, these transitivizers indicate that the subject is an agent in control of his or her actions (Bischoff, 2011, p. 27).

Causative transitivizer -st(u) The causative transitivizer -st(u) (-ct) has three primary functions. It is used to indicate customary aspect, causative construction where the subject causes something or someone to be something, and topical object construction (Doak, 1997, p. 124). A unique set of m-initial objects for first and second person singular replace the s-initial morphemes when the construction is with a causative -st(u) transitivizer (Bischoff, 2011, p. 29).

Applicative transitivizers Applicative transitivizers introduce a third participant into the argument structure, and alter the role of the object. This means the participant represented by the object person marking morpheme serves as a possessor or dative with the possessor applicative transitivizer -łt (-pra) and as a beneficiary or dative with the benefactive transitivizer -š(i)t (-bt). There is also a third, much less frequent, applicative -tułt. can also indicate a dative construction, indicating the object to which something is given. It is also worthwhile to note that third person arguments are only understood from context because Coeur d'Alene only marks two arguments on the predicate using person marking morphemes (Bischoff, 2011, p. 30).

Possessor applicative transitivizer -łt In transitive constructions with the possessor applicative -łt (-pra), the object marking on the predicate indicates the possessor, rather than the possessed, such as in Examples 1a and 1b below. In some cases, as in Example 1c below, -łt (-pra) serves to indicate a dative construction. In these cases, the role of the object shifts to dative (Bischoff, 2011, p. 30-31).

Benefactive applicative transitivizer -š(i)t In constructions with the benefactive applicative -š(i)t (-bt), the argument indicated by the ergative is agent and that by accusative/absolutive the beneficiary. The benefactive applicative may also function to characterize an object as a recipient (Bischoff, 2011, p. 31).

Dative applicative transitivizer -tułt The dative applicative -tułt is very rare, and the role of this applicative is uncertain other than that it introduces another participant into a sentence structure (Doak, 1997, p. 157). The only examples Doak gives only occur with third person or non-topic ergative person marking morphemes (Bischoff, 2011, p. 32).

Transitive person markers Transitive objects Below are the transitive object morphemes, which appear as suffixes. The 3rd person is null.

+ Transitive Objects Singular Plural 1st Person Acc. -sɛ(l)/-mɛ(l)-ɛl(i) 2nd Person Acc. -si/-mi-ulm(i) 3rd Person Abs. Ø (null)Ø (null) (-ilš)

Notes on Transitive Objects