Lexical Transfer Between Southern Interior Salish and Molalla-Sahaptian
Lexical Transfer between Southern Interior Salish and Molalla-Sahaptian Nicholas Pharris & Sarah Thomason University of Michigan Speakers of Montana Salish and Nez Perce have long been in close cultural and social contact. In this paper, we investigate the effects of these contacts on the vocabularies of the two languages, Whenever possible, we broaden our focus to encompass the Southern Interior Salish (SIS) and Molalla Sahaptian (Mol-Sah) families generally, building on previous work by Haruo Aoki and Bruce Rigsby. Most of the shared lexical items fall into six broad categories-inanimate nature, flora, fauna, cultural items, ethnonyms, and onomatopoetic forms-with a residue of miscellaneous items. Both nominal and verbal elements are represented. Some sets are restricted to Montana Salish-Spokane-l<.alispel and Nez Perce; others are widespread in both families and likely very old. The great majority of the loans appear to predate the palatalization of velars in Montana Salish and Coeur d'Alene, which occurred approximately 150 years ago. Structural influences between SIS and Mol-Sah are also briefly examined. In his important 1975 paper 'The East Plateau linguistic diffusion area', Haruo Aoki first discusses cultural and structural areal features and then lists and analyzes twenty-three definite and possible shared lexical items, focusing on Southern Interior Salish and Nez Perce. In this paper we extend Aoki's list with additional lexical items and expanded analyses. Wherever possible, we also move beyond this Sahaptian focus to consider Molalla as well; there is now substantial evidence to support the proposal that Sahaptian and Molalla are related (Pharris 2005), and this extension helps in the effort to determine the source language, or family, for some of the shared lexical items.
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