Cowlitz language

Cowlitz
Cowlitz
ƛʼpúlmixq
Native to	United States
Region	Southwestern Washington
Ethnicity	Lower Cowlitz people
Extinct	October 23, 1992, with the death of Emma Northover Mesplie; dormant by 1960s
Revival	revival efforts underway
Language family	Salishan Coast Tsamosan Inland Cowlitz; ; ; ;
Language codes
ISO 639-3	cow
Glottolog	cowl1242

Cowlitz (Cowlitz: ƛʼpúlmixq),^[2] also known as Cowlitz Salish,^[3] is a Tsamosan language of the Coast Salish family of Salishan languages. It was spoken by the Lower Cowlitz people of the Cowlitz Indian Tribe and is spoken today by both Lower and Upper Cowlitz people. It went dormant in the 1960s. As of 2022, it is being revitalized by the Cowlitz Tribe in collaboration with the Language Conservancy.^[4]^[3]

Dialects

Cowlitz had two dialects, with a dialectal opposition between [k] and [x] and [t͡ʃ] and [ʃ]. However, these dialects were poorly documented, due to the extinction of the language.^[5]

Cowlitz people

The Cowlitz people were originally two distinct tribes: the Lower Cowlitz and the Upper Cowlitz, sometimes called the Taidnapam. Only the Lower Cowlitz originally spoke Cowlitz Salish. The Upper Cowlitz spoke a Sahaptin language.^[6]

Phonology

Consonants^[7]
		Bilabial	Alveolar			Palatal	Velar		Uvular		Glottal
		Bilabial	median	sibilant	lateral	Palatal	plain	lab.	plain	lab.	Glottal
Plosive/ Affricate	plain	p	t	ts		tʃ	k	kʷ	q	qʷ	ʔ
Plosive/ Affricate	ejective	pʼ	tʼ	tsʼ	tɬʼ	tʃʼ	kʼ	kʷʼ	qʼ	qʷʼ	ʔ
Fricative				s	ɬ	ʃ	x	xʷ	χ	χʷ	h
Sonorant	plain	m	n		l	j		w
Sonorant	glottalized	mˀ	nˀ		lˀ	jˀ		wˀ

Vowels^[7]
	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Mid	e eː	ə	oː
Open		a aː

Orthography

Cowlitz alphabet^[2]
ʔ	a	b	c	cʼ	č	čʼ	d	e	ə	f	g	h	i	j	k	kʷ	kʼ	kʷʼ	l	lʼ	ɬ	ƛʼ	m	mʼ	n
nʼ	o	o	p	pʼ	q	qʷ	qʼ	qʷʼ	r	s	š	t	tʼ	u	v	w	wʼ	x	xʷ	x̣	x̣ʷ	y	yʼ	z

Vocabulary

Cowlitz is most similar to Lower Chehalis, another Tsamosan language, although it contains some oddities, such as the word for one, utsus (in contrast to the Lower Chehalis paw).

English	Cowlitz
Lower Cowlitz people	sƛʼpúlmx
one (number)	ʔúcʼs
two	sáliʔ
three	káʔɬiʔ
four	mús
five	čílačš
to sing	sʔílnʼ
moon/sun	ɬukʷáɬ
dog	qáx̣aʔ
water	qálʔ
man	síɬmx
woman	kə́wɬ

References

^ Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger (Report) (3rd ed.). UNESCO. 2010. p. 11.
^ ^a ^b "Cowlitz Coast Salish Dictionary". Cowlitz Salish Dictionary. Cowlitz Indian Tribe. Retrieved November 8, 2023.
^ ^a ^b "Cowlitz Salish Language Learning". Cowlitz Salish. The Language Conservancy. Retrieved November 8, 2023.
^ Kauffman, Brennen (February 27, 2022). "Cowlitz Language Being Brought Back With Online Dictionary, Weekend Classes". The Chronicle. Archived from the original on January 24, 2025. Retrieved December 17, 2025.
^ Kinkade, M. Dale (October 1973). "The Alveopalatal Shift in Cowlitz Salish". International Journal of American Linguistics. 39 (4): 224–231. doi:10.1086/465270. ISSN 0020-7071.
^ "Our Story". The Cowlitz Indian Tribe. Retrieved November 8, 2023.
^ ^a ^b Kinkade, Marvin Dale (2004). Cowlitz dictionary and grammatical sketch. Missoula, MT: Linguistics Laboratory, University of Montana. pp. 219–224.

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