Coast Tsimshian dialect

Tsimshian, known by its speakers as Sm'álgyax, is a dialect of the Tsimshian language spoken in northwestern British Columbia and southeastern Alaska. Sm'algyax means literally "real or true language."

Tsimshian
Sm'algyax
Native toCanada, United States
Regionnorthwest British Columbia, southeast Alaska
Ethnicity8,162 Tsimshian
Native speakers
275 in Canada, 3 in the United States (2016 census, 2020)
Tsimshianic
  • Maritime Tsimshian
    • Tsimshian
Official status
Official language in
 Alaska
Language codes
ISO 639-2tsi
ISO 639-3tsi (with Sgüüx̣s)
Glottologcoas1300
ELPSm̓algya̱x (Coast Tsimshian)
PeopleTs’msyan
LanguageSm'álgyax
CountryLa̱xyuubm Ts’msyen

The linguist Tonya Stebbins estimated the number of speakers of Tsimshian in 2001 as around 400 and in 2003 as 200 or fewer (see references below). Whichever figure is more accurate, she added in 2003 that most speakers are over 70 in age and very few are under 50. About 50 of an ethnic population of 1,300 Tsimshian in Alaska speak the language.

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.