Comox or Éyɂáɂjuuthem is a Coast Salish language historically spoken in the northern Georgia Strait region, spanning the east coast of Vancouver Island and the northern Sunshine Coast and adjoining inlets and islands. More specifically, ʔayajuθəm was traditionally spoken in Bute Inlet (also known as Church House), in Squirrel Cove (also known as Cortez Island), and in Sliammon, located in the area now known as Powell River.
It has two main dialects, Island Comox, associated with the K'ómoks First Nation, and Mainland Comox. Whereas there Comox speaks (Vancouver Island) Island dialect, the Sliammon, Klahoose, and Homalco peoples speak ʔayajuθəm, which is referred to by some as "Mainland Comox dialect". As of 2012, the Island Comox dialect has no remaining speakers. The term is not a Comox word, but rather a Kwak'wala term meaning "plenty", "abundance", or "wealth”. So Comox is not an ʔayajuθəm term, but is Wakashan based. ʔayajuθəm means “the language of our people” in Sliammon, Klahoose, and Homalco languages.
Powell River, Campbell River, and Cortez island have started projects to help save ʔayajuθəm. Children in daycare and preschool are being taught ʔayajuθəm in schools on Cortez Island, Campbell River (the current city where many of the Homalco people have resettled) and is now being taught in school district #47 (Powell River). ʔayajuθəm is also being accepted as a second language that fulfills graduation requirements. In Powell River, ʔayajuθəm is taught from daycare through grade 12.
A community accord was signed in 2003 between Sliammon First Nation and the municipality of Powell River. The municipality of Powell River has started to place the traditional Sliammon names in addition to the settler names on signs found throughout the district.
A Sliammon iPhone app was released in March 2012. An online dictionary, phrasebook, and language learning portal is available at First Voices. In addition to the First Voices site, there are ʔayajuθəm dictionaries from Sliammon and Homalco, CD's containing ʔayajuθəm and children's books containing The ʔayajuθəm language are available throughout Powell River, Campbell River, and Cortez Island.
Many Sliammon, Klahoose and Homalco do not identify as Comox, and Comox is seen by many separate and more closely linked to the kwakwaka'wakw people as Comox people speak this language. Island Comox became very rare in the late 1800s as Lekwiltok became the more common language spoken by the island Comox.
Phonology
Consonants
The consonants of Comox are depicted below in IPA and the Americanist orthography of H. R. Harris II and D. I. Kennedy when it differs from the IPA.
The stops and affricates are grouped together for simplification purposes. Contrasts only on the surface. Occur probably only in borrowings and/or onomatopoetic words.
Vowels
Allophony
may be pronounced:
between , palatal or velar (except for ), non-glottalized consonants; between such a consonant and a final word boundary. There are also a certain number of grammatical environments where the tense form of the high front vowel is required. after a , uvular or glottal consonant. elsewhere
may be pronounced:
in the same conditions as [i]. elsewhere
may be pronounced:
in the same conditions as [i]. elsewhere
may be pronounced:
between , palatal or velar (except for ) consonants. elsewhere
may be pronounced:
before a . after a , palatal or velar (except for ) consonant. following a velar rounded consonant (except for ). elsewhere. before a . after a or uvular rounded consonant. stressed before a or uvular consonant.
Morphology
"Salishan languages are highly polysynthetic, employing numerous suffixes and reduplication patterns; prefixes and infixes are less numerous. Words often include lexical suffixes referring to concrete physical objects or abstract extensions from them."
Comox has essentially lost all derivational prefixes. It is the only language in the Salish family to have lost the nominalizing prefix s- from its morphological inventory (Kroeber 11). However, the morphologically mirrored -s interestingly serves as a marker for 3rd person possession (Kroeber 111). Hagège has found certain cases where both the prefixive s- and the suffixive -s occur in circumspection. Kroeber is wary to support the finding, but offers the following: "This would appear to be a complex of the nominalizing prefix s- and the third person possessive -s; that is, the third person form of the sort of nominalized construction widely used for subordination in Salish."(Kroeber 115).