Wailaki language

Wailaki, also known as Eel River, is an extinct and revitalizing Athabaskan language spoken by the people of the Round Valley Reservation of northern California, one of four languages belonging to the California Athabaskan cluster of the Pacific Coast Athabaskan languages. Dialect clusters reflect the four Wailaki-speaking peoples, the Sinkyone, Wailaki, Nongatl, and Lassik, of the Eel River confederation. While less documented than Hupa, it is considered to be close to it. It went dormant in the 1960s, but in modern times it is being revived.^[3][2]

Wailaki
Eel River
Native to	United States
Region	California
Ethnicity	Eel River Athapaskans
Extinct	1960s[1]
Revival	2010s[2][3]
Language family	Dené–Yeniseian? Na-Dené Athabaskan Pacific Coast Athabaskan California Athabaskan Wailaki
Dialects	Sinkyone Wailaki Nongatl Lassik
Language codes
ISO 639-3	wlk
Linguist List	qt8
Glottolog	wail1244
ELP	Eel River Athabaskan
Wailaki and other California Athabaskan languages.
Eel River Athabaskan is classified as Extinct by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger [4]

Phonology

The sounds in Wailaki:

Consonants

		Bilabial	Alveolar			Palatal	Velar		Glottal
			plain	sibilant	lateral		plain	pal.
Nasal		m[a]	n				ŋ
Plosive	plain	p	t	ts[a]		tʃ	k	kʲ	ʔ
	aspirated		tʰ			tʃʰ	kʰ	kʲʰ
	ejective		tʼ	tsʼ		tʃʼ	kʼ	kʲʼ
Fricative				s	ɬ	ʃ	ɣ		h
Approximant					l	j	w[a]

1. Sounds /m, ts, w/ are rather rare.

Vowels

Vowels in Wailaki are /i e a o/, and with length as /iː eː aː oː/.

Grammar

Wailaki is polysynthetic, meaning that a single word in it is expressed in English as a sentence.^[3]