THE QUILEUTE LANGUAGE

With native languages around the world disappearing at an alarming rate, the preservation of the Quileute language has been an important mission. The excerpt below, from the Second Edition of the Quileute Dictionary, describes the Tribe’s effort not only to save the language, but to reinvigorate it:

[In 2007], the Tribal Council set up a two-year Quileute Revitalization Project with the goal of encouraging the use of Quileute words and phrases in everyday village life. A basic vocabulary of greetings, questions, numbers, names of things, and ‘one-liners’ in Quileute were made available to tribal members and staff through informal classes, email, and computer CDs.

To further make the language available to the Tribe and the rest of the world, here some documents and audio files. You can even download the Quileute font, and type out Quileute phrases of your own.

Download the Quileute Alphabet Sheet, a beautiful hand-drawn introduction to the Quileute letters and their sounds.

Download and install the Quileute Font (True Type), which may be listed as Aiil Tikas or Quil Times after installation. The Quileute Font keyboard layout guide is a helpful chart showing which Quileute character maps to the standard English QWERTY keyboard.

A list of common Quileute words and phrases, some of which appear on the recordings linked below (Learn the Words, Sets 1-4), along with their pronunciations and translations, can be downloaded to accompany the audio lessons.

The Quileute Alphabet Sheet

by Various | Quileute Language MP3s

Lillian Pullen, Elder: Notebook 2

by Various | Quileute Language MP3s

Lillian Pullen, Elder: Notebook 1

by Various | Quileute Language MP3s

Lillian Pullen, Elder: Notebook 1

by Various | Quileute Language MP3s