Chinookan is a small family of extinct languages historically spoken by Chinook peoples along the Columbia River in Oregon and Washington, comprising three languages: Lower Chinook, Kathlamet and Upper Chinook, also called Kiksht. The last fluent native speaker, Gladys Thompson, a speaker of Kiksht, died in 2012, though the 2009-2013 American Community Survey recorded 270 people self-identifying as Upper Chinook speakers, most likely heritage or second-language speakers rather than native ones. A relationship linking Chinookan to the Penutian languages has been proposed but remains uncertain, marked with a question mark in the family's own classification.
Facts
RegionAlong the Columbia River in Oregon and Washington 1 Speaker CountSelf-identified count from the 2009-2013 American Community Survey for Upper Chinook; the last fully fluent native speaker of any Chinookan language, Gladys Thompson, died in 2012. Proto-Language StatusThree languages with multiple varieties; classification is disputed, with two separate ISO 639-3 codes assigned and disagreement over whether Kiksht belongs with Lower or Upper Chinook or forms its own language. 1 Connections
Associated With
Hymes conducted extensive fieldwork on Wasco-Wishram and other Chinookan languages of the Pacific Northwest, work that grounded his ethnopoetics and ethnography of communication.
Sources
1. Wikipedia: Chinookan Languages
Wikimedia FoundationIntroduction, first sentence
The Chinookan languages are a small family of extinct languages spoken in Oregon and Washington along the Columbia River by Chinook peoples.
Family division section
There is some dispute over classification, and there are two ISO 639-3 codes assigned
Introduction, second sentence
the 2009-2013 American Community Survey found 270 self-identified speakers of Upper Chinook
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