The last native speaker of Klallam was Hazel Sampson of Port Angeles, who died on February 4, 2014, at the age of 103. Hazel Sampson had worked along with brother Ed Sampson (d. 1995), Tom Charles (d. 1999), Bea Charles (d. 2009) and Adeline Smith (d. 2013), other native speakers of Klallam, and with language teacher Jamie Valadez and linguist Timothy Montler from 1992 to compile the Klallam Dictionary. In 1999, this effort led to the development of a lesson plan and guidebooks to teach students the basics of the language through storytelling. In 2015, a complete grammar of Klallam was published for second language instruction and preservation of the language.
Bilingual English-Klallam street signs were installed at two intersections in Port Angeles in 2016. In 2020, Donald Sullivan, a member of the Port Gamble S'Klallam Tribe, installed street signs in Klallam alongside existing English ones in Little Boston.
/i/ has allophones [e, ɛ] when stressed before /ʔ/, and for some speakers also before /j/, /jˀ/, /ɴ/, or /ɴˀ/. Similarly, a stressed /u/ becomes [o] before /ʔ/, and for some, also before /j/ or /jˀ/ (but not before /w/ or /wˀ/). The former is indicated in the traditional orthography, but the latter is not.
When unstressed, /ə/ can be pronounced as [ʌ,ɪ,ʊ,ɑ] in the following environments:
Vowels may be stressed or unstressed. Unstressed vowels are shorter and lower in intensity than are stressed vowels.
Unstressed schwas are often deleted. For example, nətán ("my mother") is usually pronounced as ntán.
In the case of schwa deletion after a nasal consonant that is immediately after the stressed vowel, the nasal consonant is often geminated. For example, čánəs ("to move something") is pronounced as čánns even in very careful speech.
↑/l/ rarely occurs in Klallam. It often replaces rhotics in loanwords from Chinook Jargon, French, and English (whether it occurs in native words is possibly a matter of debate).
Glottalized sonorants /mˀ/, /nˀ/, /ɴˀ/, /jˀ/, /wˀ/ are realized either
The alveolar affricate /t͡s/ contrasts with a sequence of stop + fricative /ts/. The same goes for other affricates.
Doubled non-glottal stops and affricates are pronounced as two separate sounds, but doubled sonorants, /ʔ/, and fricatives are geminated.
Syllable structure
In Klallam, consonant clusters occur at both the beginning and the end of syllables. In the onset, consonant clusters are rather unstructured and so words like ɬq̕čšɬšáʔ ("fifty") exist with no problem. Similarly, codas can contain similar consonant clusters, as in sx̣áʔəstxʷ ("to dislike something"), wherein the unstressed schwa is dropped, creating a [ʔstxʷ] cluster.
Stress
Stress in Klallam defines the quality of the vowel in any given syllable and can occur only once in a word. Unstressed vowels are often reduced to schwa, which is indicated in the orthography. In turn, unstressed schwas are deleted. Mark Fleischer (1976) argues that schwa may be the only underlying vowel and considers that all of the others can be derived from the environment.
Stress often falls on the penultimate syllable; however, some affixes attract stress, and some words do not follow that pattern. Additionally, not all words can have stress.
Morphology
Affixation
Klallam is a polysynthetic language, like the other Salishan languages. Affixes are common for both verbs and nouns and provide temporal, case, and aspectual information. Every word contains at least one root. For example, the Klallam word ʔəsxʷaʔnáʔyaʔŋəs ("smiling") includes prefixes, suffixes, and an infix. In its component parts, ʔəs-xʷ-naʔnáʔ-yaʔ-ŋ-əs means "be in a state of small laughing on the face" or, more simply, "smiling." There are many forms of prefix, suffix, and infix; allomorphy is common, and a single affix often has multiple phonetic realizations because of the stress structure or the phonology of the word to which it is being added.
Prefixes
A common form of prefix is the time prefix. It can be added to nouns, adjectives, and verbs to project ideas of time into the root's meaning. Examples are kwɬ- ("already"), twaw̓ ("still"), čaʔ ("just now"), and txʷ- ("first," "for a while"). Other prefixes add verbal semantics with meanings such as "have," "go to," "go from," and "be affected by."
Suffixes
Klallam has lexical suffixes, which are unique to the languages of northwestern North America. They have inherently noun-like meanings and can function as the object of a verb, create a compound meaning, and act as the object of a number word. Many refer to body parts, but almost 100 lexical suffixes cover a number of different ideas. The suffixes can often take on a metaphorically-extended meaning and so "nose" can be used to refer also to a single point, and "mouth" can also mean "language." Here are examples of common lexical suffixes with alternate pronunciation in parentheses. Alternate pronunciations usually depend on the location of the stress in the root.
There are also activity suffixes that give more information about an activity, such as "structured" with -ayu and -ay̓s, "customary," with -iŋəɬ, and "habitual" with -ənəq.
Infixes
Plurality can be marked with an infix but also by many other ways. The infix marks collective plurality and so instead of strictly marking multiple of a noun, it creates a group of the noun. The infix takes one of the forms -əy̓-, -aʔy-, -éy-, or -éye-, depending on the root structure and the stress placement before it.
Reduplication
There are multiple forms of reduplication in Klallam, and each lends a particular meaning to the word. Two-consonant reduplication is a way to express plurality in about 10% of Kallam words. The first two consonants are copied and inserted before their location in the stem, and a schwa is inserted between them. For example, ləmətú ("sheep") becomes ləmləmətú ("many sheep") through this process. First-letter reduplication is one of three ways to create a continuative verb form. The first consonant of a word is then inserted after the first vowel, sometimes with a schwa later added: qán̓ cn ("I steal") becomes qáqən̓ cn ("I am stealing").
To create a diminutive form, the first consonant is reduplicated with an additional suffix' of -aʔ afterwards and an infix of -ʔ- later in the word, which may be replaced by glottalization. Then, músmes ("cow") becomes maʔmúʔsməs ("little cow," "calf"). The diminutive is not limited to noun forms. When used with a verb, the meaning takes on the characteristic of "just a little" or "by a small thing." With an adjective, the meaning is construed to a lesser extent than the original form. Other forms of reduplication exist with meanings of "characteristic," "inceptive," and "affective" aspects.
Syntax
Klallam typical has a word order that is VSO, but if the subject of the verb is obvious, the object and the subject may be in any order. Thus, VOS is a very frequent alternative structure. In addition a sentence that simply could not work with the subject and object's roles swapped, the subject is considered obvious when both participants are human and one possesses the other. For example, in kʷənáŋəts cə swéʔwəs cə táns ("The boy helped his mother," literally "helped the boy his mother"), the mother is possessed by the boy and therefore cannot be the subject. In that case, the sentence could also be written as kʷənáŋəts cə táns cə swéʔwəs, inverting the object and the subject. An adjective that is involved in a noun phrase comes before the noun that it describes.
After the first verb, either the main verb or an auxiliary verb, often there are one or more enclitic particles, which can indicated tense and a variety of moods and evidentials.
Case system
In main clauses, Klallam uses an ergative-absolutive pattern to mark the third person. The first and the second persons in the main clause, however, as well as all persons in subordinate clauses, follow a nominative-accusative pattern.
Verbs are intransitive unless marked with one of several transitivizing suffixes. The suffix -t on a verb indicates control by the actor. For example, in c̕áʔkʷ cn ʔaʔ cə nətán ("I got washed by my mother"), the root is unmarked, the subject cn is a patient, and the agent is the object of the oblique preposition ʔaʔ. However, in c̕áʔkʷt cn cə nəŋənaʔ ("I washed my child"), the -t transitive suffix marks that the agent subject and the cn is in control of the action. In a similar manner, the transitivizer -nəxʷ indicates a lack of control or a sense of "finally" or "manage to" since whether they will succeed is out of the subject's control.
The suffix -əŋ on a transitivized verb creates a passive construction. For example, c̕áʔkʷtəŋ cn ʔaʔ cə nəŋə́naʔ ("I was washed by my child"). There is additionally a middle voice in which the suffix -əŋ on an intransitive stem creates an antipassive construction, indicating an agent subject. If no patient is mentioned in the middle voice, the patient and the agent are assumed to be the same, as in an action being done to oneself. For example, c̕áʔkʷəŋ cn would usually be taken to mean "I washed myself" but is subject to some ambiguity, as it could also mean "I washed (regularly)" or "I did some washing."
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