It is with great sadness that I report the passing of Mrs. Marion Harry of the Homalco First Nation. She was a fluent speaker of the Homalco language, a.k.a. Sliammon/Homalco/Klahoose dialect of the northernmost Coast Salish language. (The language has been referred to as Sliammon, Mainland (dialect) of Comox, or ʔayʔaǰuθəm.) She passed away on September 7, 2019, at the age of 82.
She taughther ancestral language at local schools in Powell River and Campbell River,B.C., Canada, and also taught many linguists and students of linguistics fordecades. I have had the privilege of learning from her and working with her todocument this language since the mid-1990s.
It iswell-known that the sounds of Salishan languages can be formidable; forexample, a series of glottalized obstruents and resonants, velar vs. uvular, aseries of laterals (l, l’, ɬ, ƛ, ƛ’),etc. Marion’s pronunciation was quite clear, which was very helpful. In addition,through working with me, she learned to write the language with phonetic symbols.Her senses were keen. I could then just ask her whether there is a glottal stopbefore, say, ƛʼ, or whether it is a k or q.I trust that the members of SSILA can appreciate how incredibly helpful thiswas.
She wasvery fluent in the language, and this was somewhat surprising even to some ofthe elderly speakers in her community, given that she went to residentialschool for a few years, where the use of her ancestral language was strictlyforbidden. Her sense of the grammar of her language was remarkable. She couldsuggest alternative constructions for one expression, or point out “similar butdifferent” forms, providing hints for further investigation. It was byfollowing such intuition of hers that we found out that stress (or possiblypitch) is distinctive in this language, a feature that had never been pointedout in previous studies.
She wasknown among her community members, relatives, friends, colleagues, and studentsfor her “angel-like” personality. She was quite simply the sweetest person Iever met. Yet, she was strong, overcoming a series of illness and injuries. Shewas passionate about teaching her language, tireless in her effort, andrelentless in striving for accuracy. Just one month before her passing, I wasworking with her, checking data from my very early years of research. Iapologized for asking about glottal stops and glottalization, etc. etc.hundreds of times even after all these years. She replied, “But this is theonly way to get it right, is it not? Then we got to do it.” She was very softspoken and gentle, but beneath her smile was a characteristic of a scholar. Shewas a linguist’s “dream consultant.” We have lost a gem.
Her contribution to linguistics cannot be overstated, and she must be recognized and acknowledged for her generosity and effort in sharing her precious knowledge with us.
HonoréWatanabe, ILCAA, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies