Halkomelem

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Halkomelem is a Coast Salish language spoken by Indigenous peoples on the coast of what is now southwestern British Columbia, Canada, and into northern Washington, United States. It has three main dialects: Upriver Halkomelem (Halq̓eméylem), Island Halkomelem (Hul̓q̓umín̓um̓), and Downriver Halkomelem (hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓). The language’s name Halkomelem comes from the people’s word for “speaking Halkomelem.”

Where it is spoken
- The language covers a wide area along the BC coast—from southeastern Vancouver Island, around Saanich Inlet, beyond Gabriola Island and Nanaimo to Nanoose Bay, and into the Lower Mainland along the Fraser River Delta up to Harrison Lake and the Fraser Canyon.

Endangerment and speakers
- Halkomelem is severely endangered. In the early 2000s only a few dozen fluent speakers remained, mostly older adults. By 2014, about 263 fluent speakers were reported, with many more who know some Halkomelem but are not fluent. English-dominant schooling and historical pressures reduced everyday use.
- Community language programs are working to revive it, including schools and adult programs run by the Stó꞉lō Nation, Seabird Island First Nation, Cowichan First Nation, and Musqueam (in collaboration with the University of British Columbia).

Efforts to revitalize
- Dictionaries and learning resources are available, including Brent Galloway’s Dictionary of Upriver Halkomelem (2009). An iPhone app (2011) and an Android app (2016) offer vocabulary and phrases, created with FirstVoices. The FirstVoices site has thousands of stored words and phrases.
- Several communities use their own writing systems, and there are efforts to preserve and display all characters correctly with specialized typefaces. There are ongoing programs in schools and language nests to teach children Halkomelem.

What makes the language unique
- Halkomelem is polysynthetic, meaning one word can carry a lot of meaning and can act as a complete predicate. Verbs, nouns, and adjectives can form long, complex words with prefixes, suffixes, and infixes.
- The language distinguishes between different word classes mainly by how they behave in sentences (progressive forms, possessives, etc.), rather than by a strict noun-versus-verb split.
- The language has five vowel sounds with length differences, a rich set of consonants (including some glottalized sounds and ejectives), and stress patterns with a primary and sometimes secondary stress within words.
- The grammar uses an ergative–absolutive alignment in third person for transitive clauses, and its possessive system marks who owns what, with a combination of prefixes and suffixes.

Writing and pronunciation
- Several writing systems are used across communities. In 1997, the Musqueam community adopted an Americanist phonetic alphabet. Other communities use their own alphabets, and some spellings include diacritics to capture distinct sounds. A shared effort exists to ensure all Halkomelem sounds can be written accurately in digital formats.

A quick snapshot
- Language family: Coast Salish, Central Salish branch
- Regions: Southwestern British Columbia and into northern Washington
- Dialects: Upriver Halq̓eméylem, Island Hul̓q̓umín̓um̓, Downriver hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓
- Status: Severely endangered
- Efforts: Community programs, dictionaries, language nests, and digital resources like apps and online word banks
- Type of language: Polysynthetic; verbs carry much information; several prefixes, suffixes, and infixes modify meaning

Maud Menten, a noted scientist, spent part of her childhood in the area and learned Halkomelem, highlighting the language’s long history in the region. Today, revitalization efforts continue to teach new generations and keep Halkomelem alive.