T'Sou-ke dialect

T'Sou-ke, also known as Sooke, is the dialect of the North Straits Salish language spoken by the T'Sou-ke people of Vancouver Island in British Columba. As of 2014, there were no fluent speakers, although there were at least ten speakers remaining who could somewhat speak and understand the language.^[1]

T'Sou-ke
Sooke
Native to	Canada
Region	southern Vancouver Island
Ethnicity	T'Sou-ke people
Speakers	~10 partial speakers (2014)[1]
Revival	1 learner (2014)[1]
Language family	Salishan Coast Salish Central Coast Salish Straits Salish North Straits Salish T'Sou-ke
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–
Glottolog	sook1244  Sooke
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The name "T'Sou-ke" is an anglicization of the name of the stickleback fish which lives in the Sooke River estuary. The name has also been written as Soke and Sooke.^[2]

Phonology

T'Sou-ke, in contrast to other dialects of North Straits Salish, has y instead of l in some instances. Wayne Suttles suggested that the dialect has been influenced by the neighboring S'Klallam language, or that some groups of T'Sou-ke differed in speech to others.^[3]

References

1. "Language Needs Assessment: T'Sou-ke First Nation". First Peoples' Language Map of British Columbia. 2014. Archived from the original on 2015-04-25. Retrieved 2024-07-30.
2. "T'Sou-ke". Te'mexw Treaty Association. Retrieved 2024-07-31.
3. Suttles, Wayne (2001). "Some Questions about Northern Straits" (PDF). University of British Columbia Working Papers in Linguistics: 297–299 – via ICSNL Volumes.

Further reading

• Efrat, Barbara S. (1965), A Tentative Phonology of Sooke, A Coast Salish Language
• Efrat, Barbara S. (1969). A Grammar of Non-Particles in Sooke (PhD thesis). University of Pennsylvania.