Language
The Quileute tribe speaks a language called Quileute or Quillayute which is part of the Chimakuan family of languages. The Chimakum, who also spoke a Chimakuan language (called Chemakum, Chimakum, or Chimacum) were the only other group of people to speak a language from this language family. The Quileute language is still in use today, though it is an endangered language. It is spoken only by tribal elders at La Push, and some of the Makah. A unique feature of the Quileute language is the absence of nasal consonants, which are found in almost all other spoken languages of the world. The tribe is now trying to prevent the loss of the language by teaching it in the Quileute Tribal School using books written for the students by the tribal elders.
Read more about this topic: Quileute People
Famous quotes containing the word language:
“Public speaking is done in the public tongue, the national or tribal language; and the language of our tribe is the men’s language. Of course women learn it. We’re not dumb. If you can tell Margaret Thatcher from Ronald Reagan, or Indira Gandhi from General Somoza, by anything they say, tell me how. This is a man’s world, so it talks a man’s language.”
—Ursula K. Le Guin (b. 1929)
“If when a businessman speaks of minority employment, or air pollution, or poverty, he speaks in the language of a certified public accountant analyzing a corporate balance sheet, who is to know that he understands the human problems behind the statistical ones? If the businessman would stop talking like a computer printout or a page from the corporate annual report, other people would stop thinking he had a cash register for a heart. It is as simple as that—but that isn’t simple.”
—Louis B. Lundborg (1906–1981)
“Different persons growing up in the same language are like different bushes trimmed and trained to take the shape of identical elephants. The anatomical details of twigs and branches will fulfill the elephantine form differently from bush to bush, but the overall outward results are alike.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)