Coeur d'Alene (French: Cœur d'Alène), known to its speakers as Snchitsu’umshtsn, is a Salishan language.

[3] The Coeur d'Alene Names-Places Project visits geographic sites on the reservation recording video, audio, and still photos of Tribal elders who describe the site in both English and Coeur d'Alene languages.

[7] Radio station KWIS FM 88.3 in Plummer, Idaho offers programming to preserve the Snchitsu’umshtsn language.

[3][8] Lawrence Nicodemus, "a retired judge and former tribal council member," [3] became a scholar of the language.

He had worked with linguist Gladys Reichard in his youth, and went on to create a grammar, dictionary, and instructional materials.

[9][10] Doak identifies six manners of articulation: plain and glottalized voiceless stops and affricates, voiced stops and affricate, voiceless fricatives, and plain and glottalized resonants.

Coeur d'Alene examples have been taken from the works of Nicodemus et al.[14] as well as from the COLRC website.

[15] Notes on writing systems Coeur d'Alene is a morphosyntactically polysynthetic language.

The basic format of an intransitive thought as Doak[10] identifies can be found below: The intransitive subjects of Coeur d'Alene appear as clitics (Doak,[10] 1997, p. 53), and their forms as well as examples from Doak (1997,[10] p. 53-54) are found below: čngʷiččngʷič‘I saw.’čgʷiččgʷič‘We saw.’kʷugʷičkʷugʷič‘You saw.’kʷupgʷičkʷupgʷič‘You folks saw.’gʷičgʷič‘He saw.’gʷič(ilš)gʷič(ilš)‘They saw.’To clarify, the parentheses used around the suffix, -ilš, are meant to show that it is optional.

To illustrate this more clearly, Doak (1997,[10] p. 59) gives the example: ʔacqɛʔgo.out-m-m-st(u)-CAUS.TR-Ø-3.ABS-s-3.ERG-ilš-PLʔacqɛʔ -m -st(u) -Ø -s -ilšgo.out -m -CAUS.TR -3.ABS -3.ERG -PL‘He took them out.’/ ‘They took it out.’ / ‘They took them out.’There are three determiners and one oblique marker that help specify participants by joining clauses and their main predicates.

— Doak (1997,[10] p. vii) Examples: ɬuʔprox₃niʔt̓εk̓ʷuslay.in.fireɬadet₃stqʷíl̇k̇ʷupfire  ɬuʔ niʔt̓εk̓ʷus ɬa stqʷíl̇k̇ʷupprox₃ lay.in.fire det₃ fireHe lay in the fire.niQkʷupyou.folksʔáccqεʔgo.out.PLxʷεdet₁LynnLynnhiɬCONNkʷuyouʔεperson  ni kʷup ʔáccqεʔ xʷε Lynn hiɬ kʷu ʔεQ you.folks go.out.PL det₁ Lynn CONN you personDid you go out with Lynn?xεmínčshe.likesxʷεdet₁čεsčšípnche.will.chase.itxʷεdet₁ʔεOBLsčíčεʔhorse  xεmínčs xʷε čεsčšípnc xʷε ʔε sčíčεʔhe.likes det₁ he.will.chase.it det₁ OBL horseThe horse likes to chase.xʷεdet₁ʔεOBLnúnεʔstheir.motherhiɬandcεdet₂pípεʔs…their.father…  xʷε ʔε núnεʔs hiɬ cε pípεʔs…det₁ OBL their.mother and det₂ their.father…Their mother and their father ...The construction of a transitive sentence in Coeur d'Alene[10] is: There are three types of transitives in Coeur d'Alene: simple, causative, and applicative.

The lone -t (-t) and the directive transitivizer -nt (-dt) are the most commonly used in Coeur d'Alene (Bischoff,[13] 2011, p. 27).

Doak (1997,[10] p. 115) suggests that these two are alternative forms of one another with the lone -t appearing before a limited number of roots.

A unique set of m-initial objects for first and second person singular replace the s-initial morphemes when the construction is with a causative -st(u) transitivizer (Bischoff,[13] 2011, p. 29).

(Doak,[10] 1997, p. 125-126)Applicative transitivizers introduce a third participant into the argument structure, and alter the role of the object.

This means the participant represented by the object person marking morpheme serves as a possessor or dative with the possessor applicative transitivizer -łt (-pra) and as a beneficiary or dative with the benefactive transitivizer -š(i)t (-bt).

(Bischoff,[13] 2011, p. 31; Doak,[10] 1997, p. 149)In constructions with the benefactive applicative -š(i)t (-bt), the argument indicated by the ergative is agent and that by accusative/absolutive the beneficiary.

'[10]The transitive subjects of Ergative case also appear as suffixes in Coeur d'Alene.

The forms are constructed as intransitive predicates with morphology and unanalyzable roots used nowhere else, and examples are given below (Doak, 1997,[10] p. 72-73).

(Doak 1997,[10] p. 106)In addition to aspect in Coeur d'Alene, there is evidence of realis and irrealis.

Irrealis is indicated in the same way as an aspect marker, by a particle occurring before the verb.

)TR:transitivizer DIR:directive POSS:possessor NTE:non-topic ergative NCR:non-control/resultative