Danezaa language

Danezaa
Beaver
Spoken in Canada
Region British Columbia
Ethnicity Danezaa
Native speakers 300  (1991)
Language family
Language codes
ISO 639-3 bea
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Danezaa (ᑕᓀᖚ Dane-zaa, Dunneza), also known as Tsattine or traditionally as Beaver, is an Athabascan language of western Canada. About half of the Danezaa people speak the language.

Contents

Sounds

Consonants

Dunneza has 35 consonants:

  Bilabial Dental Alveolar Postalveolar
/ Palatal		 Velar Glottal
central lateral
Nasal m   n        
Plosive unaspirated p   t     k  
aspirated     tʰ     kʰ  
ejective     tʼ     kʼ ʔ
Affricate unaspirated   ts̪ ts tɬ tʃ    
aspirated   ts̪ʰ tsʰ tɬʰ tʃʰ    
ejective   ts̪ʼ tsʼ tɬʼ tʃʼ    
Fricative voiceless   s̪ s ɬ ʃ (x) h
voiced   z̪ z ɮ ʒ ɣ  
Approximant         j w  

Vowels

Dunneza has 10 phonemic vowels.

  Front Central Back
Close full i   u
reduced ɪ   ʊ
Mid oral e   o
nasal ẽ   õ
Open reduced   ɜ  
full   a  

Two vowels contrast oral and nasal qualities.

External links

Bibliography