Child Phonology in a Language Revitalization Context: Evidence from Hul’q’umi’num’

Indigenous language revitalization is a multi-generational process. For example, many children now acquiring a Salish language in Western Canada are learning from caregivers who are second-language speakers. Little is known about the trajectory of children's phonological acquisition in such contexts. Here, we investigate Hul'q'umi'num', which, like many Salish languages, has far more consonants than English and much more frequent consonant clusters. Thirteen children (approximately 3-8 years) produced familiar Hul'q'umi'num' words after hearing adult caregivers' productions. Descriptive (using transcription notes) and quantitative (correlational and loglinear) analyses of the resulting 339 child words (1,179 consonants) revealed patterns that were reflective of general phonological development (e.g., highly variable fricatives, cluster simplification) and also patterns potentially specific to Hul'q'umi'num' acquisition (e.g., de-ejectivization, precocious production of plain uvular stops). Results provide valuable data about child phonology in Salish contexts, with implications for language acquisition in multilingual contexts and for within-community early language teaching.