Lower Chehalis language

Lower Chehalis (Łəw̓ál̕məš) is a member of the Tsamosan (or Olympic Peninsula) branch of the Coast Salish family of Salishan languages. In some classifications, Lower Chehalis is placed closer to Quinault than it is to Upper Chehalis.

Lower Chehalis
Łəw̓ál̕məš
Native to	United States
Region	south of Olympic Peninsula, Washington
Ethnicity	Chehalis people
Extinct	1990s[1]
Language family	Salishan Coast Tsamosan Maritime Lower Chehalis
Language codes
ISO 639-3	cea
Glottolog	lowe1427
Lower Chehalis is classified as Extinct by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger [2]

Phonology

Consonants

		Bilabial	Alveolar			Palatal	Velar		Uvular		Glottal
			central	sibilant	lateral		plain	lab.	plain	lab.
Plosive/ Affricate	plain	p	t	ts		tʃ	k	kʷ	q	qʷ	ʔ
	ejective	pʼ	tʼ	tsʼ	tɬʼ	tʃʼ	kʼ	kʷʼ	qʼ	qʷʼ
Fricative				s	ɬ	ʃ		xʷ	χ	χʷ	h
Sonorant	plain	m	n		l	j		w
	glottalized	ˀm	ˀn		ˀl	ˀj		ˀw

Vowels are represented as /i ə u a/ and /iː uː aː/.^[3] Allophones are also noted. Instead of the high /i/ and /u/, Kinkade claims the vowels are /e ə o a eː oː aː/, based on the most common allophones.^[4]

Sound	Allophone
/i/	[i], [e], [ɛ]
/a/	[aˤ], [a], [ɐ]
/ə/	[ɨ], [ə], [ʌ], [ɪ], [ʊ]
/u/	[u], [o], [ɔ]

References

1. Lower Chehalis at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
2. Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger (Report) (3rd ed.). UNESCO. 2010. p. 11.
3. Snow, Charles T. (June 1969). A Lower Chehalis Phonology (Master of Arts thesis). University of Kansas. hdl:1808/26715. Retrieved 2022-05-29.
4. Kinkade, M. Dale (July 1963). "Phonology and Morphology of Upper Chehalis: I". International Journal of American Linguistics. 29 (3): 181–195. doi:10.1086/464734.