Lillooet , known in the language itself as / (), is the language of the St’át’imc, a Salishan language of the Interior branch spoken in southern British Columbia, Canada, around the middle Fraser and Lillooet Rivers. The language of the Lower Lillooet people uses the name , because means "the language of the people of Sat̓", i.e. the Upper Lillooet of the Fraser River. Lillooet is an endangered language with as few as 200 native speakers practically all of whom are over 60 years of age (Gordon 2005). Regional varieties St̓át̓imcets has two main dialects: Upper/Northern St̓át̓imcets ( St̓át̓imcets, Fountain) Lower/Southern St̓at̓imcets (a.k.a. Lil̓wat7úlmec, Mount Currie) Upper St̓át̓imcets is spoken around Fountain, Pavilion, Lillooet, and neighboring areas. Lower St̓át̓imcets is spoken around Mount Currie and neighboring areas. An additional subdialect called Skookumchuck is spoken within the Lower St̓át̓imcets dialect area, but there is no information available in van Eijk (1981, 1997) (which are the main references for this article). A common usage used by the bands of the Lower Lillooet River below Lillooet Lake is Ucwalmicwts. The "Clao7alcw" (Raven's Nest) language nest program at Mount Currie, home of the Lil’wat, is conducted in the Lil̓wat language and was the focus of Onowa McIvor's Master's thesis. As of 2014, "the Coastal Corridor Consortium— an entity made up of board members from First Nations and educational partners to improve aboriginal access to and performance in postsecondary education and training— ... [has] developed a Lil’wat-language program." Phonology Consonants St̓át̓imcets has 44 consonants: Obstruents consist of the stops, affricates, and fricatives. There are 22 obstruents. Sonorants consist of the nasals and approximants. There are 22 sonorants. Glottalized stops are pronounced as ejective consonants. Glottalized sonorants are pronounced with creaky voice: = . The glottalized consonants of St'at'imcets contrast not only with plain consonants, but also with sequences of plain consonant + glottal stop, or glottalized consonant + glottal stop, in either order. This holds for both the obstruents and the sonorants: ≠ ≠ ≠ ≠ ≠ and ≠ ≠ ≠ ≠ ≠ . The dental approximants are pronounced alternatively as interdental fricatives or as dental fricatives , depending on the dialect of St'at'imcets. There are four pairs of retracted and nonretracted consonants (which alternate morphophonemically). Retraction on consonants is essentially velarization, although additionally, nonretracted is phonetically laminal whereas retracted is apical . (St'at'imcets has retracted-nonretracted vowel pairs.) Among the post-velar consonants, the obstruents are