Nooksack Place Names

Geography, Culture, and Language

Table of contents

Nooksack Phonemes and Orthographic Conventions

Part 1: About This Book and Its Sources

1 Introduction

2 Major Sources and Their Interpretation

Part 2: Nooksack Place Names

3 Introduction and Phonological Comments

4 Analysis of the Place Names

Part 3: Geography, Semantics, and Culture

5 Naming Patterns

6 Conclusion

References

A comprehensive guide to the traditional place names of the Nooksack people of Washington State and southern British Columbia, replete with maps, photographs, literal meanings, and linguistic analyses.

Description

Place names convey a people’s relationship to the land, their sense of place. For indigenous peoples, place names can also help to revive endangered languages. This book takes readers on a voyage into the history, language, and culture of the Nooksack people of Washington State and British Columbia as it documents more than 150 places named by elders and mentioned in key historical texts. Descriptions of Nooksack history and naming patterns -- with maps, photographs, and linguistic analyses of the place names – give life to a nearly extinct language and illuminate the intertwined relationships of place, culture, language, and identity.

To hear audio recordings of the place names in the book, and for additional images of the places, visit the Nooksack Place Names: Audio Recordings and Images website at www.nooksackplacenames.com.