Dene Suline language
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dene Suline Dëne Sųłiné |
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Spoken in: | Canada | |
Region: | Northern Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba; southern Northwest Territories and Nunavut | |
Total speakers: | 11,895 [1] | |
Language family: | Dené-Yeniseian Na-Dené Athabaskan-Eyak Athabaskan Northern Athabaskan Dene Suline |
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Language codes | ||
ISO 639-1: | none | |
ISO 639-2: | chp | |
ISO 639-3: | chp | |
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. |
Dene Suline (also Dëne Sųłiné, Dene Sųłiné, Chipewyan, Dene Suliné, Dëne Suliné, Dene Soun’liné or just Dene) is the language spoken by the Chipewyan people of central Canada. It is a part of the Athabaskan family and therefore related to the Navajo language. Dene Suline has over 11,000 speakers in Canada, mostly in Saskatchewan, Alberta and the Northwest Territories, [1] but only has official status in the Northwest Territories alongside 8 other aboriginal languages: Cree, Dogrib, Gwichʼin, Inuktitut, Inuinnaqtun, Inuvialuktun, North Slavey and South Slavey.[2]
Contents |
[edit] Sounds
[edit] Consonants
The 39 consonants of Dene Suline:
Bilabial | Inter- dental |
Dental | Post- alveolar |
Velar/Uvular | Glottal | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
central | lateral | plain | labial | ||||||
Nasal | m | n | |||||||
Plosive | plain | p | t | k | kʷ | ||||
aspirated | tʰ | kʰ | kʷʰ | ||||||
ejective | tʼ | kʼ | kʼʷ | ʔ | |||||
Affricate | plain | tθ | ts | tɬ | tʃ | ||||
aspirated | tθʰ | tsʰ | tɬʰ | tʃʰ | |||||
ejective | tθʼ | tsʼ | tɬʼ | tʃʼ | |||||
Fricative | voiceless | θ | s | ɬ | ʃ | χ | χʷ | h | |
voiced | ð | z | ɮ | ʒ | ʁ | ʁʷ | |||
Trill | r |
The "velar" fricatives are actually uvular.
[edit] Vowels
Dene Suline has vowels of 6 differing qualities.
Front | Central | Back | |
---|---|---|---|
Close | i | u | |
Close-mid | e | o | |
Open-mid | ɛ | ||
Open | a |
Most vowels can be either
As a result, Dene Suline has 18 phonemic vowels:
Front | Central | Back | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
short | long | short | long | short | long | ||
Close | oral | i | iː | u | uː | ||
nasal | ĩ | ĩː | ũ | ũː | |||
Close-mid | e | o | |||||
Open-mid | oral | ɛ | ɛː | ||||
nasal | ɛ̃ | ɛ̃ː | |||||
Open | oral | a | aː | ||||
nasal | ã | ãː |
Dene Suline also has 9 oral and nasal diphthongs of the form vowel + /j/.
Front | Central | Back | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
oral | nasal | oral | nasal | oral | nasal | |
Close | uj | ũj | ||||
Mid | ej | ẽj | əj | oj | õj | |
Open | aj | ãj |
[edit] Tone
Dene Suline has two tones:
- high
- low
[edit] References
- ^ a b Statistics Canada: 2006 Census
- ^ Northwest Territories Official Languages Act, 1988 (as amended 1988, 1991-1992, 2003)
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Chipewyan at Ethnologue
- Our Languages: Dene (Saskatchewan Indian Cultural Centre)
- history & background
- reservations
- reservation maps
- preservation/revitalization
- alphabet
- grammar
- terms/phrases (includes sound files)
[edit] Bibliography
- Cook, Eung-Do. (2004). A grammar of Dëne Sųłiné (Chipewyan). Algonquian and Iroquoian Linguistics - Special Athabaskan Number, Memoir 17. Winnipeg: Algonquian and Iroquoian Linguistics. ISBN 0-921064-17-9.
- Cook, Eung-Do. 2006. "The Patterns of Consonantal Acquisition and Change in Chipewyan (Dene Suline)". International Journal of American Linguistics. 72, no. 2: 236.
- De Reuse, Willem. 2006. "A Grammar of Dene Suline (Chipewyan) (Cook)". International Journal of American Linguistics. 72, no. 4: 535.
- Elford, Leon W. Dene sųłiné yati ditł'ísé = Dene sųłiné reader. Prince Albert, SK: Northern Canada Mission Distributors, 2001. ISBN 1896968287
- Gessner, S. 2005. "Properties of Tone in Dene Suline". Amsterdam Studies in the Theory and History of Linguistic Science. Series IV, Current Issues in Linguistic Theory. 269: 229-248.
- Gordon, Raymond G., Jr. (Ed.). (2005). Ethnologue: Languages of the world (15th ed.). Dallas, TX: SIL International. ISBN 1-55671-159-X. (Online version: http://www.ethnologue.com).
- Li, Fang-Kuei. (1946). Chipewyan. In C. Osgood & H. Hoijer (Eds.), Linguistic structures of native America (pp. 398-423). New York: The Viking Fund.
- Osgood, Cornelius; & Hoijer, Harry (Eds.). (1946). Linguistic structures of native America. Viking fund publications in anthropology (No. 6). New York: The Viking Fund. (Reprinted 1963, 1965, 1967, & 1971, New York: Johnson Reprint Corp.).