Sarcee language

Sarcee
Tsúùt’ínà
Spoken in Canada
Region Alberta
Ethnicity Sarcee people
Native speakers 50  (date missing)
Language family
Language codes
ISO 639-3 srs
This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters.

Tsuut’ina (also Sarcee, Sarsi, Tsuu T’ina, Tsu T’ina, Tsúùtínà) is a language spoken by the Tsuu T'ina Nation near Calgary, Alberta. It belongs to the Athabaskan language family, which also include the Navajo and Chiricahua of the south, and the Dene Suline and Tłı̨chǫ of the north.

The name Tsuu T'ina comes from the Tsuu T’ina self designation Tsúùt’ínà which is translated variously as 'many people', 'nation tribe', or 'people among the beavers'. However, all of these derivations are unlikely.

Contents

Phonology

Consonants

The consonants of Tsuut'ina in the standard orthography are listed below (with IPA notation in brackets):

  Bilabial Alveolar Lateral Postalveolar Velar Velar Rounded Glottal
Stop voiced   b*  [b]   d  [d]       g  [ɡ]   gw*  [ɡʷ]  
voiceless     t  [t]       k  [k]   kw*  [kʷ]   ’  [ʔ]
ejective     t’  [tʼ]       k’  [kʼ]   kw’*  [kʷʼ]  
Affricate voiced     dz  [dz]   dl  [dɮ]   dj  [dʒ]      
voiceless     ts  [ts]   tl  [tɬ]   tc  [tʃ]      
ejective     ts’  [tsʼ]   tl’  [tɬʼ]   tc’  [tʃʼ]      
Fricative voiced     z  [z]     j  [ʒ]   ɣ  [ɣ]    
voiceless     s  [s]   ł  [ɬ]   sh  [ʃ]   x  [x]     h  [h]
Nasal     m  [m]   n  [n]          
Approximant     w  [w]     l  [l]   y  [j]      

* disputed as phonemes

Vowels

There are four distinct vowels in Tsuut'ina - i, a, o, and u. While a and o are fairly constant, i and u can vary considerably.

  • i varies between [i] and [e]
  • a [a]
  • o [ɒ] - The vowel o does not correspond to the sound [o].
  • u varies between [u] and [o]
  • long vowels are marked with an asterisk, e.g., a* [aː]
  • high tone is marked with an acute accent, e.g., á
  • low tone is marked with a grave accent, e.g., à
  • medial tone is marked with a macron, e.g., ā

Nouns

Nouns in Tsuut'ina are not declined, and most plural nouns are not distinguished from singular nouns. However, kinship terms are distinguished between singular and plural form by adding the suffix -ká (or -kúwá) to the end of the noun, or by using the word yìná.

List of nouns

People

Nature

Noun possession

Nouns can exist in free form or possessed form. When in possessed form, the prefixes listed below can be attached to nouns to show possession. For example, más, "knife", can be affixed with the 1st person prefix to become sìmázà’, or "my knife". Note that -mázà’ is the possessed form of the noun.

Some nouns, like más, as shown above, can alternate between free form and possessed form. A few nouns, like zòs, "snow", are never possessed and exist only in free form. Other nouns, such as -tsì’, "head", have no free form and must always be possessed.

Typical possession prefixes

Bibliography

See also

External links