Hul’q’umi’num’
/həlˈkʷəmiːnəm/noun
A Coast Salish language traditionally spoken by communities on southeastern Vancouver Island and nearby Gulf Islands in British Columbia.
Did you know?Hul’q’umi’num’ is an Indigenous language name written with specialized apostrophes that represent glottalized consonants, sounds not normally marked in English spelling.
Etymological Timeline
Prehistory
Salishan
祖語形未確定
“The language belongs to the Salishan family, but the precise prehistoric form of its name is not securely reconstructed.”
19th Century
English records
Cowichan; Hul’qumi’num’
“Colonial and ethnographic records began representing the language and its speakers with varying spellings, often based on English sound conventions.”
20th Century
Hul’q’umi’num’
Hul’q’umi’num’
“Indigenous language documentation increasingly adopted orthographies designed to represent its actual consonants, glottalization, and vowel system.”
Modern English
English
Hul’q’umi’num’
“The standardized Latin-script name commonly used for the language in educational, cultural, governmental, and revitalization contexts.”
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