Kwak'wala
/ˈkwɑːkʷələ/noun
The Indigenous language traditionally spoken by the Kwakwaka'wakw peoples of coastal British Columbia.
Did you know?Kwak'wala is part of the Wakashan language family, famous for complex consonants and for preserving Indigenous cultural knowledge through oral traditions, names, songs, and ceremonial speech.
Etymological Timeline
Pre-contact era
Kwak'wala
Kwak'wala
“The language spoken by the Kwakwaka'wakw; the precise internal segmentation of the name is not securely equivalent to a simple English phrase.”
18th–19th Century
Kwak'wala
Kwak'wala
“The language encountered and recorded by European explorers, missionaries, and colonial scholars on the central coast of British Columbia.”
19th Century
English
Kwakiutl language
“An older English label, derived from the name of one Kwakwaka'wakw group, later criticized as an outsider term for the broader language.”
20th Century
Linguistics
Kwakiutlan
“A historical linguistic classification connected with what is now generally called the Wakashan family.”
Modern English
English
Kwak'wala
“The standard modern English name for the Indigenous language, commonly written with an apostrophe marking a glottal feature.”
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