Ditidaht language

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title: "Ditidaht language" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["ditidaht-first-nation", "wakashan-languages", "indigenous-languages-of-the-pacific-northwest-coast", "first-nations-languages-in-canada", "endangered-wakashan-languages"] description: "Wakashan language" topic_path: "linguistics" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ditidaht_language" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Wakashan language ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox language"]

Field	Value
name	Ditidaht
nativename	diitiid7aa7tx, diitiidʔaaʔtx̣
altname	Nitinaht
states	Canada
region	Southern part of Vancouver Island, British Columbia
ethnicity	940 Ditidaht (2014, FPCC); formerly also the Pacheedaht
speakers	7
date	2014, FPCC
ref	e18
familycolor	American
fam1	Wakashan
fam2	Southern
iso3	dtd
glotto	diti1235
glottorefname	Ditidaht
map	Wakashan_map.svg
mapcaption	Map of Wakashan languages
::

| name = Ditidaht | nativename = diitiid7aa7tx, diitiidʔaaʔtx̣ | altname = Nitinaht | states = Canada | region = Southern part of Vancouver Island, British Columbia | ethnicity = 940 Ditidaht (2014, FPCC); formerly also the Pacheedaht | speakers = 7 | date = 2014, FPCC | ref = e18 | familycolor = American | fam1 = Wakashan | fam2 = Southern | iso3 = dtd | glotto = diti1235 | glottorefname = Ditidaht | map = Wakashan_map.svg | mapcaption = Map of Wakashan languages

Ditidaht [dee-tee-dot] (also Nitinaht, Nitinat, Southern Nootkan) or is a South Wakashan (Nootkan) language spoken on the southern part of Vancouver Island. Nitinaht is related to the other South Wakashan languages, Makah and the neighboring Nuu-chah-nulth.

Status and history

The number of native Ditidaht speakers dwindled from about thirty in the 1990sMithun, Marianne. (1999). The languages of Native North America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. to just eight by 2006.Kwong, Matthew. (2006-07-22). "Standing by their words". The Globe and Mail. In 2003 the Ditidaht council approved construction of a $4.2 million community school to teach students on the Ditidaht (Malachan) reserve their language and culture from kindergarten to Grade 12. The program was successful in its first years and produced its first high-school graduate in 2005. In 2014, the number of fluent Ditidaht speakers was 7, the number of individuals who have a good grasp on the language 6, and there were 55 people learning the language.

Ditidaht has been the subject of considerable linguistic research including the publication of texts and, in 1981, an introductory university-level textbook.

Names

The reason for the unusual discrepancy in the names Nitinaht and Ditidaht is that when the Ditidaht people were first contacted by Europeans, they had nasal consonants () in their language. Their autonym of Nitinaht was what the Europeans recorded for them and their language. Soon afterward the consonants shifted to voiced plosives () as part of an areal trend, so the people came to call themselves Ditidaht. Ditidaht is thus one of only a handful of languages in the world that do not have nasal consonants.

Phonology

Consonants

::data[format=table] | Bilabial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Uvular | Pharyngeal | Glottal | plain || sibilant || lateral | plain || lab. | plain || lab. | Plosive/ Affricate | voiceless | ejective | voiced | glottalized | Fricative | Sonorant | voiced | glottalized | |---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | ::

Vowels

Vowels are phonemically transcribed as and . They are noted phonetically as: ::data[format=table]

Phoneme	Sound	Phoneme	Sound
::

Notes

References

1. http://www.ditidaht.ca/history.htm#THE {{Webarchive. link. (2014-02-28 DITIDAHT PEOPLE)
2. "Ditidaht First Nation".
3. "Ditidat Bibliography".
4. Werle, Adam. (2007). "Ditidaht Vowel Alternations and Prosody". The Canadian Journal of Linguistics.

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