Sekani language
| Sekani | |
|---|---|
| Tse'khene | |
| Native to | Canada |
| Region | British Columbia |
| Ethnicity | 1,410 Sekani people (2014, FPCC)[1] |
Native speakers | 30 (2014, FPCC)[1] |
|
Dené–Yeniseian?
| |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 |
sek |
| Glottolog |
seka1250[2] |
The Sekani language is a Northern Athabaskan language spoken by the Sekani people of north-central British Columbia, Canada.
Sounds
Consonants
Sekani has 33 consonants:
| Bilabial | Alveolar | Post- Alveolar |
Velar | Glottal | ||||
| central | lateral | plain | labial | |||||
| Stop | unaspirated | p | t | k | kʷ | |||
| aspirated | (pʰ) | tʰ | kʰ | kʷʰ | ||||
| ejective | tʼ | kʼ | kʼʷ | ʔ | ||||
| Affricate | unaspirated | ts | tɬ | tʃ | ||||
| aspirated | tsʰ | tɬʰ | tʃʰ | |||||
| ejective | tsʼ | tɬʼ | tʃʼ | |||||
| Nasal | m | n | ||||||
| Fricative- Approximant* |
voiceless | s | ɬ | ç | x | xʷ | h | |
| voiced | z | l | j | ɣ | w | |||
- *Sekani, like other Athabaskan languages, does not contrast fricatives with approximants.
Vowels
| Front | Central | Back | |
| High | i | u | |
| Mid | e | ə | o |
| Low | a |
Tone
Sekani has two tones, low and high. High is the default. That is, syllables normally have high tone. Syllables phonologically marked for tone are low.
Ethnologue/ISO 639-3 Code
SEK
Examples [3]
Kwadacha Tsek'ene dialect
- dune man; person
- tlįį dog
- wudzįįh caribou
- yus snow
- chǫ rain
- k’wus cloud
- kwùn fire
- ’įįbèh summer
- too water
- mun lake
- nun land
- tselh axe
- ʼukèʼ foot
- ’àtse my grandfather
- ’àtsǫǫ my grandmother
- lhìghè’ one
- lhèkwudut’e two
- tadut’e three
- dįįdut’e four
- ǫ yes
- Tlįį duchę̀’ ’ehdasde January
- Dahyusè’ nùkehde wìlę February
- Nùtsʼiide March
- ʼUtʼǫ̀ʼ kùnuyehde May
- Jìje dinììdulh July
- Yhììh nunutsunde wìlę August
- Yhììh ukudeh’àsde September
- ’Udììtl’ǫh ’uwit’į̀į̀h October
- Yus ’ut’į̀į̀h November
- Khuye ’uwììjàh December
Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Sekani at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
- ↑ Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Sekani". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
- ↑ FirstVoices: Kwadacha Tsek'ene Community Portal
Bibliography
- Hargus, Sharon. (1988). The Lexical Phonology of Sekani. (Outstanding Dissertations in Linguistics). New York: Garland Publishers. ISBN 0-8240-5187-4
- Mithun, Marianne. (1999). The Languages of Native North America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-23228-7 (hbk); ISBN 0-521-29875-X.
Articles
- Hargus, Sharon (2009) Effects on consonant duration in Fort Ware Tsek'ene. Presented at Athabaskan/Dene Languages Conference, Eugene, OR. PDF of slides, PDF of references.
- Hargus, Sharon (2009) "Causatives and transitionals in Kwadacha Tsek'ene." (slides) Presented at the Athabaskan Languages Conference, Berkeley, CA. [Supported by NSF DEL-0651853 and Kwadacha Education Society]
- Hargus, Sharon (2009) "Phonetic vs. phonological rounding in Athabaskan languages." PDF of slides, PDF of references. Presented at LabPhon 12, Albuquerque, NM. (reposted July 16, 2010). The article will appear in Journal of Laboratory Phonology 3:163-193.
External links
- First Voices Kwadacha Tsek'ene Community Portal
- Sekani entry on First Nations Languages of British Columbia site
- Bibliography of Sekani Linguistics
- Map of Northwest Coast First Nations (including Sekani)
- OLAC resources in and about the Sekani language
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||