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Glite Dictionary
🧑‍🦱 An Indigenous people 🗣️ An Indigenous language
Tsimshian

Tsimshian

1 9.9
A language spoken by a native people who live in British Columbia and southern Alaska
  • noun
  • /ˈtsɪmʃiən/
: idioma tsimshian
  • The Tsimshian language is a vital part of the cultural heritage of the Tsimshian people.

Examples

  • As Dauenhauer and Dauenhauer (1988:12) have recently pointed out, the language of these songs seems in some cases to be a human foreign language, such as Haida or Tsimshian, and in other cases an unknown language revealed by the shaman's spirit helper.

    Academic text (1990)

  • In British Columbia, children are taught the Tsimshian language in schools to help preserve their traditions.

  • Many linguists have studied the Tsimshian language to understand its unique grammatical structure.

Synonyms

Tsimshian language
vsTsimshian
9.9

A native language spoken by the Tsimshian people in British Columbia and Alaska

is the shorter name used without the explicit word for language

Compounds

Tsimshian language
9.9

A native language spoken by the Tsimshian people in British Columbia and Alaska

Surface Forms

Tsimshian singular
Tsimshians plural

Etymology

Tsimshian for the language is the same name used by the people, often written as Sm'algyax, so a helpful way to remember it is to think of Tsimshian as the people's own speech or 'their language'. That's why Tsimshian refers to the language spoken by communities in parts of British Columbia and Alaska.