UC Santa Barbara

The language miluk tɬiis (miluk) is one of two members of the Coosan family, a small family on the Oregon Coast, centered around the eponymous Coos Bay. The Miluk people have lived in the area since time immemorial. However, as European colonization of the continent continued, the Miluk people and their language faced an existential crisis. By 1939, it seemed that this struggle for survival had ended when the last first-language speaker, Annie Miner Peterson, passed away. However, because she, and others, shared their stories and their language with others, such as Melville Jacobs, who documented hundreds of pages of stories in miluk, the foundation for language revitalization, reclamation, and awakening was established. Work continued with the language and documentation of the last second-language speaker, Lotty Metcalf. The baton was then picked up by her descendent, Troy Anderson, who worked with Lawrence Morgan, to start revitalization efforts at the Coquille Indian Tribe.

I entered the fray working as a research assistant for a transcription and digitization effort led by the Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua, and Siuslaw Indians, who have been leading the charge for language reawakening efforts with miluk for nearly a decade. Spearheaded by Enna Helms and Patricia Whereat Phillips, alongside the support of fellow linguist Shahar Shirtz, we have been able to work together to create curriculum for students learning miluk as a heritage language. Our efforts have culminated in the creation of a trilingual dictionary, with English and the two Coosan languages.This dissertation is entitled A Reference Grammar of miluk tɬiis, or tɬe miluk tɬiis buuqw. It is the end-result of the last five years of my life. Born out of Annie Miner Peterson’s stories, this dissertation provides an in-depth description of all aspects of the language, from the smallest details about individual sounds to the big picture of storytelling and narrative structure. It is my deepest hope that this buuqw will advance the reawakening efforts of miluk. I dream of a future where I can have conversations and read beautiful poetry and literature in this marvellous tongue.