Eleventh Heritage Language Research Institute

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First Nations Languages as Heritage Languages: a Case Study from Salish

This paper takes some tentative steps towards the investigation of First Nations/Native American languages (FNLs) as heritage languages, in the particular sense of first languages (L1s) whose speakers have experienced restricted input during the later phases of language acquisition. It is based on four case studies from one particular Canadian FNL: ʔayʔaǰuθəm, a Central Salish language spoken in southern coastal British Columbia with perhaps forty remaining L1 speakers, all of whom experienced linguistic disruption in late childhood/early adolescence. Each study examines a particular domain of the grammar: in phonetics, the production of fricatives; in morphophonology, the productivity and regularity of reduplication; in syntax, changes in the distribution of overt arguments; and in semantics, the use and meaning of determiners. Our conclusions are that with the exception of some lexical attrition, the grammars of contemporary speakers are remarkably similar to those of previous generations; in fact, in some areas, grammatical productivity has increased to compensate for reduced lexical resources.