Upper Chinook Language
Upper Chinook, also known as Kiksht, Columbia Chinook, and Wasco-Wishram after its only living dialect, is a highly endangered language of the US Pacific Northwest. It had 69 speakers as of 1990, of which 7 were monolingual: five Wasco and two Wishram. As of 2001, there were five remaining speakers of Wasco.
It was the last living Chinookan language. The last fully fluent speaker, Gladys Thompson, died in 2012. She had been honored for her work by the Oregon Legislature in 2007.
Two new speakers were teaching Kiksht at the Warm Springs Indian Reservation in 2006. The Northwest Indian Language Institute of the University of Oregon formed a partnership to teach Kiksht and Numu in the Warm Springs schools.
Audio and video files of Kiksht are available at the Endangered Languages Archive.
Read more about Upper Chinook Language: Dialects
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