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Klamath — the Klamath Language

The Máklaks language of the Klamath country of south-central Oregon — one language in its Klamath Lake and Modoc dialects, carried today by the Klamath Tribes' own Language Department.

Recovered texts are here to read. The people's own curriculum doorway is in preparation — in partnership with the Klamath Tribes' own speakers. The goal is the whole collection in Klamath: every book to read and to hear, here and in the school. Nothing is published until they have guided and reviewed it.

The language

The 1890 book on this shelf names the language in its own words: “The Klamath or Máklaks language is spoken in two dialects, that of the Klamath Lake Indians, or É-ukshikni, and that of the Modocs.” The Klamath Lake and Modoc dialects are one language — the language of the Klamath Tribes, the Klamath, Modoc, and Yahooskin peoples of south-central Oregon. In this doorway's own words the language is Klamath; quoted matter keeps the book's naming.

The Tribes' own Language Department states its mission in the present tense: to celebrate and sustain the tribal cultures “by living, teaching, and speaking our Paiute, Modoc, and Klamath languages” — a language, in its words, “not just something to preserve but something to revitalize and actively practice in our daily lives.” The Department, established in 2022 by the Tribes' own account, teaches weekly classes, elders' language classes, and courses in eight-week terms at beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels; and its own language story begins where this shelf begins — with the first dictionary of the language, Gatschet's of 1890.

Their own teachers

The Klamath Tribes Language Department is the language's own house of teaching: it runs the Tribes' language classes and study groups, elders' classes, one-on-one sessions, translations, and teaching materials, and it can supply the Gatschet dictionary itself. What is learned to speak is learned there, in the Tribes' own teaching.

The Klamath Tribes — Language Department — the Tribes' own department for the Klamath, Modoc, and Paiute languages: its mission, classes, and language story

The writing

The Tribes' Department teaches with its own core teachings — the tribal alphabet and sentence structure, and training in the International Phonetic Alphabet for pronunciation. The recovered witness below keeps the phonetic spelling Albert S. Gatschet printed in 1890, with the book's own “List of Sounds Occurring in the Klamath Language” as its key. The two writings are not the same, and no learner should confuse them. What is relearned here is read in the old spelling exactly as printed, and learned to speak at the Tribes' house in the Tribes' spelling.

Recovered reading

One recovered book stands here: The Klamath Indians of Southwestern Oregon (Contributions to North American Ethnology, Volume II, Part I; Washington, 1890), by Albert Samuel Gatschet. This page carries Part I's front matter complete, the Introduction to the Ethnographic Sketch, the Introduction to the Texts entire — which holds the book's alphabet and phonetic key entire — and the first complete Klamath text entire, given in the Modoc dialect by Toby Riddle, with its interlinear translation and Gatschet's notes: 6,184 words of printed text in all, and no reading stands marked [?]. Not included: the remainder of the Ethnographic Sketch, the remaining texts, the Grammar, and the whole of Part II, the dictionary — all standing for a later recovery. It is the people's own witness, recovered as a historical text — not a Sacred Name edition; the collection's own edition in this language waits for the partnership. Read the front matter, Introduction to the Texts, alphabet, and first text of Gatschet's Klamath (1890)

The recovered reading continues in book order with the second of Gatschet's Texts: Fights between Klamath Lake and Rogue River Indians (Texts pp. 16–18 of The Klamath Indians of Southwestern Oregon, 1890), given by Wawáliks, or Dave Hill, subchief of the Klamath Lake tribe, in the Klamath Lake dialect — Dave Hill, Gatschet's first note records, took part himself in one of these skirmishes. The Klamath text stands entire with Gatschet's interlinear translation and his Notes, in his 1890 phonetic notation exactly as printed; one weakly inked sort in the tribal name on p. 17 stands marked unresolved rather than guessed. It is the people's own printed witness, recovered exactly as it was printed — not a Sacred Name edition. Read Text 2, Fights between Klamath Lake and Rogue River Indians (Gatschet, 1890)

An open invitation

This door stands open by invitation. If you are a speaker, teacher, or language keeper of Klamath, or you carry its authority, this programme asks to work with you — to be guided, corrected, and reviewed by the people whose language this is. In this collection the holy names are never invented: what the Creator is called in a language is for its own speakers to give, and the spelling of every text is theirs to settle. Write to the publisher at [email protected].

The first door is the Klamath Tribes Language Department.

To hear it

When Klamath opens here, it will be heard as well as read — in its own voice, spoken and recorded by Klamath speakers. Until then this door is silent in Klamath on purpose: the first voice heard in it should be the people's own.

The other doors

One small advertisement stands at the bottom of this page — never inside the reading text. The words of the book stand more prominent than the advertisement.