St'at'imcets

Lillooet ˈlɪloʊɛt, known in the language itself as St̓át̓imcets / Sƛ̓aƛ̓imxǝc (ˈʃt͡ɬʼæt͡ɬʼjəmxət͡ʃ), is the language of the St’át’imc, a Salishan language of the Interior branch spoken in southern British Columbia, Canada, around the middle Fraser and Lillooet Rivers. The language of the Lower Lillooet people uses the name Ucwalmícwts, because St̓át̓imcets means "the language of the people of Sat̓", i.e. the Upper Lillooet of the Fraser River. Lillooet is an endangered language with as few as 200 native speakers practically all of whom are over 60 years of age (Gordon 2005). St̓át̓imcets has two main dialects: Upper/Northern St̓át̓imcets ( St̓át̓imcets, Fountain) Lower/Southern St̓at̓imcets (a.k.a. Lil̓wat7úlmec, Mount Currie) Upper St̓át̓imcets is spoken around Fountain, Pavilion, Lillooet, and neighboring areas. Lower St̓át̓imcets is spoken around Mount Currie and neighboring areas. An additional subdialect called Skookumchuck is spoken within the Lower St̓át̓imcets dialect area, but there is no information available in van Eijk (1981, 1997) (which are the main references for this article). A common usage used by the bands of the Lower Lillooet River below Lillooet Lake is Ucwalmicwts. The "Clao7alcw" (Raven's Nest) language nest program at Mount Currie, home of the Lil’wat, is conducted in the Lil̓wat language and was the focus of Onowa McIvor's Master's thesis. As of 2014, "the Coastal Corridor Consortium— an entity made up of board members from First Nations and educational partners to improve aboriginal access to and performance in postsecondary education and training— ... [has] developed a Lil’wat-language program." St̓át̓imcets has 44 consonants: Obstruents consist of the stops, affricates, and fricatives. There are 22 obstruents. Sonorants consist of the nasals and approximants. There are 22 sonorants. Glottalized stops are pronounced as ejective consonants. Glottalized sonorants are pronounced with creaky voice: /ˀn/ = [n̰].