HAIDA 

 By John K. S wanton 



§1. LOCATION 



The Haida language, called Skittagetan by Powell, was anciently 

 spoken only on the Queen Charlotte islands, off the coast of British 

 Columbia. About a hundred and fifty or two hundred years ago, 

 however, a large body of Haida moved from their old towns in the 

 northwestern part of the islands, and settled around Cordova and 

 Kasaan bays, Alaska. As originally situated the Haida consisted of 

 six fairly well-marked geographical groups, each of which probably 

 possessed certain dialectic peculiarities; but only two or three well- 

 established dialects can now be said to exist. The two most impor- 

 tant of these are that spoken at Skidegate, in the central portion of 

 the Queen Charlotte islands, and that spoken at Masset (on the 

 northern end of the islands) and in Howkan, Klinkwan, and Kasaan, 

 Alaska. The first I shall call the Skidegate dialect, and the second 

 the Masset dialect. The speech of the people around the southern 

 extremity of the group differed so far from these that it may also 

 have been entitled to dialectic rank, but so few of those who used to 

 speak it now survive that we have no absolute knowledge on this 

 point. From the name given by whites to their principal town, I 

 shall call this hypothetical dialect the dialect of Ninstints. 



The nearest neighbors of the Skidegate Haida were the Tsimshian 

 of the mainland of British Columbia; and the nearest neighbors of 

 the Masset Haida the Alaskan Tlingit. There is evidence, however, 

 that at one time the Tlingit were neighbors of the southern Haida 

 as well ; and the speech of both shows morphological and even lexical 

 similarities such as lead to a suspicion of genetic relationship. 

 Although Tsimshian influence has been very strong among the Haida 

 in recent years, the Tsimshian language is quite distinct, and the 

 only other language in this region which shows any morphological 

 similarity to Haida is the Athapascan spoken in the interior of the 

 continent. 



44877— Bull. 40, pt 1—10 14 209 



