Columbia-Moses language
Indigenous language of the United States
Moses-Columbia, or Columbia-Wenatchi (in Moses-Columbia: Nxaʔamxcín), is an extinct Southern Interior Salish language, also known as Nxaảmxcín. Speakers traditionally lived in the Colville Indian Reservation.
Classification
Nxaʔamxcín is classified as a member of the Salishan languages, a family of languages spoken throughout the Pacific Northwest. Specifically, Nxaʔamxcín is part of the Southern subgroup of Interior Salish, along with the Okanagan, Salish–Spokane–Kalispel, and Coeur d'Alene languages.
Dialects
There were four dialects, Moses-Columbia (Sinkiuse, Columbian), Chelan, Entiat, and Wenatchi (Wenatchee). Wenatchi was the heritage language of the Wenatchi, Chelan, and Entiat tribes, Columbian of the Sinkiuse-Columbia.
History
The language was extensively documented beginning in the 1960s, when there were about 22 speakers left. A language revitalization program began in the 1990s. Pauline Stensgar, who died on May 2, 2023, at age 96, is reported to have been the last known fully fluent speaker. She helped develop dictionaries and textbooks in the language.
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This entry incorporates text from “Columbia-Moses language” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.