In Samish, grammatical gender is categorized as either “feminine” or “ungendered.” There is no specific male gender, instead everything non-female — whether male, non-binary, or inanimate — is expressed as ungendered.  

Very few standalone nouns in Samish are gendered, such as tán (mother) or mán (father). Instead, non-gendered terms are much more common, such as stíkwen (sibling’s child, nibling) or ngéne7 (child, offspring). 

There are several ways to indicate gender. The most common is “the/a” which appears before a non-gendered term.  

In many language resources, if either gender marker could be used depending on the gender of the subject, tse/se will be written as t/se to indicate the flexibility. 

Another common way to indicate gender is “this” which appears after a non-gendered term. To use “this" in a sentence (i.e., “This is my daughter.”), both a verbal form “nílh” and an adjectival form “tiyá/siyá” must be used. The latter is gendered. 

Seen and Unseen 

Tse, se, nílh, tiyá, and siyá are all in reference to people and objects that are seen, or at least nearby. If the person or object in reference is not seen or far away, a different set of words should be used: kw and kwse. These two are interchangeable and can be used in place of any of the other sets of terms, just for an invisible or far away object. These can also be used for abstract (and therefore “unseen”) concepts: Qwál7-sen kw Xws7ámeshqen, “I speak Samish.” 

Pronouns

There are several sets of pronouns in Samish; the three simplest and most common are subject pronouns, possessive pronouns, and standalone (“pronominal verb”) pronouns. Subject pronouns are the subject of the sentence, the one doing the action. Possessive pronouns indicate who owns or is related to an object, no matter whether human or nonhuman. Standalone pronouns emphasize the subject or object of the sentence. 

Both subject and possessive pronouns appear connected to a verb/noun by a hyphen “-“ such as kwénet-sen (I pick it up) or ne-ngéne7 (my child). Standalone pronouns function differently and are therefore not connected by a hyphen.

Like most Samish words, the majority of pronouns are ungendered; see the two most frequent gendered pronouns in the Standalone Pronouns section. 

Subject Pronouns 

Subject pronouns are the ones doing the action in a sentence. Unlike other languages you may have learned, like French or Spanish, subject pronouns do not “conjugate” (alter the spelling or sound of) the root-word; they are simply added to the end with a hyphen, making them visually easy to identify. 

Samish has very simple conjugations for subject and tense — both are small words connected to the root with just a hyphen. With these terms, new speakers can create phrases for all subjects and for simple present, past, and future tenses. 

Not included in this resource are complex conjugations that change the root-word itself.  These include ongoing action, root-words that are plural or diminutive, and some other special cases without simple counterparts in English.  

There are two types of verbs in Samish: transitive verbs and intransitive verbs. The third-person pronouns (they, he, she, it) interact with each type slightly differently. 

Transitive verbs always reference an object that they are acting on, such as kwénet (to pick something up) or hákw’ (to remember something). 

Note that for intransitive verbs, the third person (he, she, they, it) is neither spoken aloud nor appears in daily writing. Linguists indicate this unspoken (but grammatically implied) third person pronouns as “-∅.” 

Possessive pronouns 

Standalone Pronouns (Pronominal Verbs) 

Pronouns that stand on their own are used to point out someone/something specific in a group:  

In Samish, these standalone pronouns can also act as verbs. For example, “és” most literally translates as “it is me.” You could say Xws7ámesh-sen (I am Samish) or, for emphasis, Xws7ámesh t/se és (it is me who is Samish). The prior example sentences, then, could be better translated as: 

• “It is me who is strong.”  

• “It is we who are Samish.” 

• “It is you to whom I raise my hands.”  

Tsu7nílh (audio below) is a contraction of tse-u7-nílh, and su7nílh (audio below) is a contraction of se-u7-nílh.

Tense

As mentioned in the Subject Pronouns section, tense is also quite simple in Samish. There are two tense markers: -le7 (past tense) and –se7 (future tense).  

Past tense markers are frequently omitted and instead implied by context. 

In most instances, tense markers will be attached to root-words with a subject pronoun also attached. If the subject is first-person or third-person, the tense marker is placed after the subject pronoun: