The linguist Tonya Stebbins estimated the number of speakers of Tsimshian in 2001 as around 400 and in 2003 as 200 or fewer (see references below).

The unrounded mid back vowel can either be the long [a] or the short and slightly raised [ʌ] depending on context.

[8] Underlining /a/ is optional for indicating the back long vowel, and fluent speakers will usually omit it.

Dunn's representation of the high back vowel seems to be slightly more forward than the IPA equivalent, since he uses the phonetic symbols [ɨ̈] or [ɪ̈].

The glottalization diacritic ⟨ ' ⟩ may be switched to the other side of a velar segment depending on whether it falls pre-, post- or intervocalically.

Tsimshian utilizes (C)CV or (C)CVC(C) syllable structures in which the vowels can occur long or short.

The only consonants that qualify as syllabic (indicated optionally by underlining) are the sonorants /m/, /n/ and /l/ (and their glottalized counterparts).

Schulenberg reports finding /pt, pts, ptl, kts, qp, qtk, qtsc, qsk, nts, tɟ/ among many others, though only a smaller portion can occur in the rime.

Clusters at the ends of words often have an epenthetic vowel inserted, which is usually /a/ [ʌ] but can also be either /i/ [ɪ] or /ɯ/ [ɯ].

52 (Prince Rupert) when preparing the Suwilaay'msga Na Ga'niiyatgm, Teachings of Our Grandfathers book series in the early 1990s, with the blessing of the Tsimshian hereditary chiefs.

The Living Legacy Talking Dictionary provides both written and spoken samples of the language.

[9] There are multiple connectors that are suffixed or prefixed onto adjacent words which can create long strings of lexical items.

Schulenberg records at least 12 different classes of reduplication but Dunn later condenses these to just five, depending on which part of the word is copied, and whether it is prefixed, suffixed or infixed.

The words that take this prefix usually have a specific relation to an individual, such as body parts, clothing and kin.

The affixed morphemes can be extremely altered from their original forms, sometimes according to phonological rules, sometimes arbitrarily.

Attached to nouns and verbs, they may convey locative, aspectual, modal, case relational and lexical information.

The following descriptions of the prefixes are intended to convey what sort of position the object or person is in.

Like the lexical suffixes, these proclitics derive from existing morphemes and can alter the stem meaning in various ways.

Although nominal and verbal marking allows syntax to be freer than English, word order is still an important aspect of the phrase.

To place specific emphasis on the ergative noun (topicalization), it may be moved to the front of the phrase with the subsequent changes: temporal marker + -t and in- + verb.

Any absolutive noun may be topicalized as well with the following changes: temporal marker + t and verb + da.

(Dunn has shown that the affixed particles on the temporal marker and the verb are falling out of use among the younger generation.

However, many of the noun phrases in the sentence can be represented on both the verb and/or the temporal marker as pre-, in- or suffixes.