Liqʼwala
Kwakʼwala dialect of British Columbia, Canada
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Liqʼwala (also rendered Liq̓ʷala and Lik'wala) is an endangered dialect of Kwakʼwala spoken by the Laich-kwil-tach people of Vancouver Island, British Columbia.[2]
| Liqʼwala | |
|---|---|
| Liq̓ʷala | |
| Native to | Canada |
| Region | British Columbia |
| Ethnicity | Laich-kwil-tach |
Native speakers | 12 (2017)[1] |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | – |
| Glottolog | None |
Laich-kwil-tach territory | |
Revitalization efforts
In 2017, according to Laurie Lewis of the Liqʼwala Language Revitalization Committee, only 12 individuals, all over 70, were fluent Liqʼwala speakers.[1] The Campbell River Mirror reported in 2017 that an attempt would be made to teach the dialect through a Liqʼwala language immersion pilot program:
Lewis says they already have a mentor-apprentice program where a fluent elder works one-on-one with a qualified teacher for 300 hours, and between that elder and teacher, she is confident they could create a three-year pilot program that would provide a full immersion program. "We just want three years to make some fluent speakers so we can save our language," Lewis says, "and I want to have the conversation about how we can do that. We believe we can do it."
In January 2019, School District 72 Campbell River passed a motion to pilot a Liq'wala immersion program at Ripple Rock Elementary in Campbell River, British Columbia.
Phonology
| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Uvular | Glottal | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| plain | sibilant | lateral | plain | lab. | plain | lab. | |||||
| Plosive/ Affricate |
voiceless | p | t | ts | tɬ | c | k | kʷ | q | qʷ | ʔ |
| voiced | b | d | dz | dɮ | ɡ | ɡʷ | ɢ | ɢʷ | |||
| ejective | pʼ | tʼ | tsʼ | tɬʼ | cʼ | kʼ | kʷʼ | qʼ | qʷʼ | ||
| Fricative | s | ɬ | x | xʷ | χ | χʷ | h | ||||
| Sonorant | plain | m | n | l | j | w | |||||
| glottalized | mˀ | nˀ | lˀ | jˀ | wˀ | ||||||
Orthography
Liq'wala follows an orthography based on Americanist phonetic notation and thus varies significantly from the orthography employed by other dialects of Kwak'wala.[3][4]
