Jamestown S'Klallam Tribal Library: Klallam Langage

Keep up on the latest language offerings of the Lower Elwha Language program.

See and hear how to pronounce the words and phrases in the 2020 Jamestown S'Klallam calendar.

The Klallam language (nəxʷsƛ̕ay̕əmúcən) has since time immemorial been spoken on the north shore of Washington's Olympic Peninsula from the Strait of Juan de Fuca inland into the mountains. It is also native to some other nearby areas such as Becher Bay on the south of Vancouver Island and on some nearby smaller islands. Klallam is one language in a large family of Native American languages called Salishan or Salish languages spoken in what is now Washington, British Columbia, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana.

View some notes on Clallam language and plural formations. The APS Digital Library provides access to a wide variety of digitized items from the holdings of the American Philosophical Society.

Many Native American languages are slowly dying with the elders who speak them fluently. Kids don’t learn them in school and don’t speak them at home, and most aren’t interested in learning them. They don’t have a use anymore. Everything from movies to iPhones to sports to texting--it’s all in English.

Kenneth Hale, a language advocate who taught linguistics at MIT, said “When you lose a language, you lose a culture, intellectual wealth, a work of art. It's like dropping a bomb on the Louvre.”

In this program, Scott Greenstone talks to everyone from translators to young, “urban” Native Americans about the fight to save these cultures, and how that is everything from building expansive dictionaries to translating Shakespeare to simply writing songs.

This document describes the process taken by the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe to develop a program to revitalize the Klallam Language. It includes the competencies required for teacher certification.