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Okanagan language
| Colville-Okanagan | |
|---|---|
| Okanagan, Colville | |
| n̓səl̓xčin̓, Nsyilxcən, n̓syil̓xčn̓ | |
| Native to | Canada, United States |
| Region | Southern Interior of British Columbia, Central-northern State of Washington |
| Ethnicity | Okanagan, Colville, Lakes, Methow |
Native speakers | 50 (2007–2014)[1] 75 L2 speakers (2007) |
Salishan
| |
| Dialects |
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | oka |
| Glottolog | okan1243 |
| ELP | Nsyilxcən |
 Okanagan is classified as Definitely Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger | |
Okanagan, or Colville-Okanagan, or Nsyilxcən (n̓səl̓xcin̓, n̓syilxčn̓), is a Salish language which arose among the Indigenous peoples of the southern Interior Plateau region based primarily in the Okanagan River Basin and the Columbia River Basin in precolonial times in Canada and the United States. Following British, American, and Canadian colonization during the 1800s and the subsequent assimilation of all Salishan tribes, the use of Colville-Okanagan declined drastically.
Colville-Okanagan is highly endangered, is rarely learned as a first language, but is being learned as a second language by more than 40 adults and 35 children in the City of Spokane, Washington, and by several dozen adults on the Colville Indian Reservation in Washington State and among Okanagan people in the Okanagan Valley of British Columbia. About 50 deeply fluent first-language speakers of Colville-Okanagan Salish remain, the majority of whom live in the Okanagan Valley of British Columbia.[2] The language is currently moribund and has no first-language speakers younger than 50 years of age. Colville-Okanagan is the second-most spoken Salish language after Shuswap.
- ^ Colville-Okanagan at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
- ^ Gordon, Raymond G. Ed. (2005). Salishan: Ethnologue Archived 2012-11-04 at the Wayback Machine. Ethnologue: Languages of the World, 15th ed. Retrieved April 14, 2014.
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