Champaign/Urbana: Ahousat

[Henry Kammler]

>
>     Sending greetings from the LSA Institute in Champaign/Urbana -- and
>if you think Nahuatl is 'strangely foreign', you should see Ahousat, being
>taught here by Emmon Bach and Katie Fraser. It not only has the voiceless
>laterally released affricate (tl) of Nahuatl, it has a *glottalized* one
>also, plus glottalized counterparts of 10 other consonants, but no
>'ordinary' /b d g r l/
>
>Mary

What a coincidence. I did work with speakers of the TsishaatH and AhousatH
dialects of "Nootka" in 96/97. Nice to bump into a Nootkan reference on
Nahuat-L. I can only agree: "Nootka" (Nuuchaa'nulh) is a really strange
language as compared to Nahuatl, the sound inventory still being the easier
part (though more complex than Nahuatl). Another difference: the three
dialects of "Nootka" have less than 150 fluent speakers altogether now (out
of 6000 or so), the Ahousat variant is the most viable one.

Henry