Quileute /ˈkwɪlɪjuːt/,[2] sometimes alternatively anglicized as Quillayute /kwɪˈleɪjuːt/, is an extinct language, and was the last Chimakuan language, spoken natively until the end of the 20th century by Quileute and Makah elders on the western coast of the Olympic peninsula south of Cape Flattery at La Push and the lower Hoh River in Washington state, United States.
A basic vocabulary of greetings, questions, numbers, names of things, and ‘one-liners’ in Quileute were made available to tribal members and staff through informal classes, email and computer CDs.
However, later research by Jay Powell[9] has shown that Andrade had overdistinguished and that Quileute has a simpler accentual system whereby primary stress (accompanied by a higher pitch as in English) usually falls on the penultimate syllable and some words also harbor secondary stress on a different syllable.
Quileute is notable as having no nasal consonants, a feature shared with a few unrelated languages in its immediate vicinity, namely, Makah, Nitinaht, Lushootseed and Twana.
It has the following consonants (/t͡ɬ/ and /ɡ/ are rare): The plain voiceless stops and affricates are slightly aspirated.