the vast majority of colville-okanagan words are from proto-salish or proto-interior salish. a number of colville-okanagan words are shared with or borrowed from the neighboring salish, sahaptian, and kutenai languages. more recent word borrowings are from english and french. colville-okanagan was an exclusively oral form of communication until the late 19th century, when priests and linguists began transcribing the language for word lists, dictionaries, grammars, and translations. colville-okanagan is currently written in latin script using the american phonetic alphabet.