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:
“One who speaks a foreign language just a little takes more pleasure in it than one who speaks it well. Enjoyment belongs to those who know things halfway.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (18441900)
“Just as language has no longer anything in common with the thing it names, so the movements of most of the people who live in cities have lost their connexion with the earth; they hang, as it were, in the air, hover in all directions, and find no place where they can settle.”
—Rainer Maria Rilke (18751926)
“Great literature is simply language charged with meaning to the utmost possible degree.”
—Ezra Pound (18851972)