Kootenai language
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Kootenai_language".

Kootenai language

The Kutenai language (also Kootenai or Ktunaxa language) is named after and is spoken by some of the Kootenai Native American/First Nations people who are indigenous to the area of North America that is now Montana, Idaho, and British Columbia.

Kutenai is a language isolate having no demonstrable relation to any other language. The most plausible hypothesis for a connection to other languages is the proposal that it is distantly related to the Salishan languages. This hypothesis is generally considered plausible but not well established.

The 1990 US Census, counted 102 Kootenai speakers in the United States and the Canadian Census counted 220 speakers.

See also

• Kootenai (tribe)
• Kootenay
• Salish Kootenai College

References

• Campbell, Lyle. (1997). American Indian languages: The historical linguistics of Native America. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195094271.
• Mithun, Marianne (2000) The Languages of Native North America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521232287

Further reading

External links

• Ethnologue entry
• First Nations Languages of British Columbia Ktunaxa page
• Ktunaxa language at languagegeek.com

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