Oowekyala

The name of Oowekyala is derived from the root 'back, inland' and the suffix 'speech'. The same root is found in the name of the Wuikinuxv, with the suffix 'tribe'. An Anglicized form of this name, Oowekeeno, has also been used to designate the language, also spelled Oweekeno, Wikeno, Owikeno, Oweekano, and Awikenox. == Classification ==

Oowekyala is one of the Wakashan languages, a language family distributed in western coastal British Columbia. It belongs to the Northern branch of the family, together with other related languages like Kwakʼwala, Haisla and Heiltsuk. The latter is frequently considered a dialect of the same language as Oowekyala, although speakers consider the two distinct, and there are many phonological and grammatical differences between the two. For example, Heiltsuk is a tonal language, while Oowekyala is not. ==Phonology==

Consonants Oowekyala has 45 consonantal phonemes, as shown in the table below. Phonologically, affricates are treated as stops, and nasals and approximants are treated as sonorants. Additionally, and are treated as sonorants. Vowels Oowekyala has phonemic short, long, and glottalized vowels: Oowekyala is the only Wakashan language with glottalized vowels, which are extremely restricted and can only appear "as the first syllabic sonorant in a word". == References ==