Nez Perce language
- noun
- The Nez Perce language is taught in some schools to help preserve the traditions of the Nez Perce people.
Examples
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Many students in the region are learning the Nez Perce language to connect with their cultural heritage.
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She, too, was deeply religious—but she had been willing to learn the Nez Perce language, and she had accepted some of their ways as her own.
Academic text (2011) -
As part of the cultural program, participants were encouraged to practice speaking the Nez Perce language during the workshops.
Synonyms
A Native American language spoken in the Pacific Northwest United States
The language spoken by the Nez Perce people
Surface Forms
Morphology
Nez + Perce + language
The noun phrase follows the transparent structural pattern “X language” (i.e. the language spoken by X), so a learner who recognises the proper name would infer it refers to the language of that people. However, the elements 'Nez' and 'Perce' are lexicalized proper-name components (not semantically compositional or dictionary-defined), so the specific referent is not derivable from the parts alone and requires prior knowledge of the ethnonym.
Etymology
Nez Perce language comes from French explorers who called the people 'nez percé', meaning 'pierced nose', because they thought some people wore nose rings. So today Nez Perce language simply means the language spoken by the Nez Perce people in the northwestern United States.
