Salishan languages in the context of "Agglutinative"

Haida /ˈhaɪdə/ (X̱aat Kíl, X̱aadas Kíl, X̱aayda Kil, Xaad kil) is the language of the Haida people, spoken in the Haida Gwaii archipelago off the coast of western Canada and on Prince of Wales Island in Alaska. An endangered language, Haida currently has 24 native speakers, though revitalization efforts are underway. At the time of the European arrival at Haida Gwaii in 1774, it is estimated that Haida speakers numbered about 15,000. Epidemics soon led to a drastic reduction in the Haida population, which became limited to three villages: Masset, Skidegate, and Hydaburg. Positive attitudes towards assimilation combined with the ban on speaking Haida in residential schools led to a sharp decline in the use of the Haida language among the Haida people, and today almost all ethnic Haida use English to communicate.

Classification of the Haida language is a matter of controversy, with some linguists placing it in the Na-Dené language family and others arguing that it is a language isolate. Haida itself is split between Northern and Southern dialects, which differ primarily in phonology. The Northern Haida dialects have developed pharyngeal consonants, typologically uncommon sounds which are also found in some of the nearby Salishan and Wakashan languages.

A caron (/ˈkærən/ KARR-ən) or háček (/ˈhɑːtʃɛk, ˈhætʃɛk, ˈheɪtʃɛk/ HAH-chek, HATCH-ek, HAY-chek, plural háčeks or háčky), is a diacritic mark (◌̌) placed over certain letters in the orthography of some languages, to indicate a change of the related letter's pronunciation.Typographers tend to use the term caron, while linguists prefer the Czech word háček.

The symbol is common in the Baltic, Slavic, Finnic, Samic and Berber language families.Its use differs according to the orthographic rules of a language. In most Slavic and other European languages it indicates present or historical palatalization (e → ě; [e] → [ʲe]), iotation, or postalveolar articulation (c → č; [ts] → [tʃ]). In Salishan languages, it often represents a uvular consonant (x → x̌; [x] → [χ]). When placed over vowel symbols, the caron can indicate a contour tone, for instance the falling and then rising tone in the Pinyin romanization of Mandarin Chinese. It is also used to decorate symbols in mathematics, where it is often pronounced /ˈtʃɛk/ ("check").

In linguistic typology, a verb–object–subject or verb–object–agent language, which is commonly abbreviated VOS or VOA, is one in which most sentences arrange their elements in that order. That would be the equivalent in English to "Ate apples Sam." The relatively rare default word order accounts for only 3% of the world's languages. It is the fourth-most common default word order among the world's languages out of the six. It is a more common default permutation than OVS and OSV but is significantly rarer than SOV (as in Hindi and Japanese), SVO (as in English and Mandarin), and VSO (as in Filipino and Irish). Families in which all or many of their languages are VOS include the following:

• the Algonquian family (including Ojibwa)
• the Arawakan family (including Baure and Terêna)
• the Austronesian family (including Dusun, Malagasy, Toba Batak, Tukang Besi, Palauan, Gilbertese, Fijian and Tsou)
• the Chumash family (including Inoseño Chumash)
• the Mayan family (including Huastec, Yucatec, Mopán, Lacondón, Chol, Tzeltal, Tzotzil, Chuj, Tojolabal, Cakchiquel, Tzutujil, Sacapultec, Pocomam, Pocomchí and Kekchi)
• the Otomanguean family (including Mezquital Otomi and Highland Otomi)
• the Salishan family (including Coeur d'Alene and Twana)

Halkomelem (/ˌhɒlkəˈmeɪləm/ HALL-kə-MAY-ləm; Halq̓eméylem in the Upriver dialect, Hul̓q̓umín̓um̓ in the Island dialect, and hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ in the Downriver dialect) is a language of various First Nations peoples of the British Columbia Coast. It is spoken in what is now British Columbia, ranging from southeastern Vancouver Island from the west shore of Saanich Inlet northward beyond Gabriola Island and Nanaimo to Nanoose Bay and including the Lower Mainland from the Fraser River Delta upriver to Harrison Lake and the lower boundary of the Fraser Canyon.

In the classification of Salishan languages, Halkomelem is a member of the Central Salish branch. There are four other branches of the family: Tsamosan, Interior Salish, Bella Coola, and Tillamook. Speakers of the Central and Tsamosan languages are often identified in ethnographic literature as "Coast Salish".