Bella Coola and North Wakashan: Convergence and Diversity in the Northwest Coast Sprachbund

The Pacific Northwest of North America is home to one of the most geographically extensive Sprachbunds in the world, stretching from the north of California to southern Alaska and extending at its widest point as far east as the Rocky Mountains of Alberta and Montana. Within this area is found a diverse set of languages belonging to a wide range of families and phyla, many of which have come to resemble each other in typological terms to a remarkable degree. Unfortunately, while extensive trade, intermarriage, and bilingualism in the region seem likely, we can only speculate about the extent and the nature of the contact between the various language groups in prehistoric times. There is, however, at least one example of substantial grammatical approximation within the Central Northwest group of languages (see Map 1) which has taken place at a manageable timedepth and which might allow us to build a model of language interaction that reflects one type of contact situation found in the NWC Sprachbund as a whole. The case in point is Bella Coola, the most northerly of the coastal Salish languages; in its modern range Bella Coola is completely cut off from its relatives, being bounded on three sides by the Wakashan languages Haisla, Heiltsuk, and Oowekyala, and to the east by two languages of the Athapaskan family, Carrier and Chilcotin. According to Mcllwraith (1948), the Bella Coola held the Wakashan in some esteem and admired their superior knowledge of ceremonial lore and rituals. The Bella Coola believe many of their rites to have originated with the Wakashan peoples, particularly the Bella Bella (Heiltsuk). Mcllwraith reports intimate contact, including trade and intermarriage, between the two groups, and, judging by the nature and direction of lexical borrowings, the Bella Coola seem to