The Chimakuan languages are a group of extinct languages that were spoken in northwestern Washington state, United States, on the Olympic Peninsula. They were spoken by Chimakum, Quileute and Hoh tribes. They are part of the Mosan sprachbund, and one of its languages is famous for having no nasal consonants. The two languages were about as close as English and German. Due to proximity, the Chimakum languages are also similar to Wakashan languages. Family division Chemakum (also known as Chimakum or Chimacum) (†) Quileute (also known as Quillayute) (†) Chemakum is now extinct. It was spoken until the 1940s on the east side of the Olympic Peninsula between Port Townsend and Hood Canal. The name Chemakum is an Anglicized version of a Salishan word for the Chimakum people, such as the nearby Twana word čə́bqəb (earlier ). Quileute is now extinct. During the late 20th and early 21st centuries a revitalization effort began, and it is today spoken as a second language by a relatively small amount of the Quileute tribe on the west coast of the Olympic Peninsula, south of Cape Flattery. The name Quileute comes from kʷoʔlí·yot''' , the name of a village at La Push. Phonology The Chimakuan languages have phonemic inventories similar to other languages of the region, with few vowels, ejective consonants, uvular consonants, and lateral affricates. However, both languages have typological oddities — Chemakum had no simple velar consonants, and Quileute has no nasal consonants — because of regular sound changes in these languages. Proto-Chimakuan The Proto-Chimakuan sound system, as reconstructed by Powell, contained three vowels, long and short, and lexical stress (accompanied by a higher pitch as in English). It had the consonants listed in the following table. In angle brackets ‹› following each IPA symbol are Powell’s own (Americanist) notation, which I shall be using henceforth instead of the IPA. The plain voiceless stops and affricates were probably mildly aspirated as in modern Quileute. The Proto-Chimakuan palato-alveolar fricative and affricates *š, *č, *č̓ developed as positional allophones of Pre-Proto-Chimakuan *xʷ, *kʷ, *k̓ʷ before the front vowel *i. This is why the Quileute and Chemakum reflexes of Proto-Chimakuan *xʷ, *kʷ, *k̓ʷ and *š, *č, *č̓ are largely in complementary distribution, though they are clearly phonemized in the modern languages (and probably already was in Late Proto-Chimakuan before it split) owing to loans and some irregular and analogical developments, especially in Chemakum. Note that