Dogrib language
| Dogrib | |
|---|---|
| Tlinchon | |
| Tłı̨chǫ Yatıì | |
| Native to | Canada |
| Region | Northwest Territories |
| Ethnicity | Dogrib people |
Native speakers | 2,100 (2011 census)[1] |
| Official status | |
Official language in | Northwest Territories (Canada)[2] |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-2 |
dgr |
| ISO 639-3 |
dgr |
| Glottolog |
dogr1252[3] |
The Dogrib language, or Tlinchon (/ˈtlɪntʃɒn/; Tłı̨chǫ Yatıì [tɬʰĩtʃʰõ jatʰîː]), is a Northern Athabaskan language spoken by the Tłı̨chǫ (Digrib people) of the Canadian Northwest Territories. According to Statistics Canada in 2006, there were 2,640 people who spoke Tlinchon.[4]
The Tlinchon region covers the northern shore of Great Slave Lake, reaching almost up to Great Bear Lake. Rae-Edzo, now known by its Tlinchon name, Behchokǫ̀, is the largest community in the Tlinchon region.
Phonology
Consonants
The consonants of Tlinchon in the standard orthography are listed below (with IPA notation in brackets):[5]
| Bilabial | Alveolar | Post- alveolar |
Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| central | lateral | plain | labialized | ||||||
| Nasal | plain | m /m/ | n /n/ | ||||||
| prenasalized | mb /ᵐb/ | nd /ⁿd/ | |||||||
| Plosive | tenuis | (b /p/) | d /t/ | g /k/ | gw /kʷ/ | ’ /ʔ/ | |||
| aspirated | t /tʰ/ | k /kʰ/ | kw /kʷʰ/ | ||||||
| ejective | t’ /tʼ/ | k’ /kʼ/ | kw’ /kʷʼ/ | ||||||
| Affricate | tenuis | dz /ts/ | dl /tɬ/ | j /tʃ/ | |||||
| aspirated | ts /tsʰ/ | tl /tɬʰ/ | ch /tʃʰ/ | ||||||
| ejective | ts’ /tsʼ/ | tl’ /tɬʼ/ | ch’ /tʃʼ/ | ||||||
| Fricative | voiced | z /z/ | l /n/ | zh /ʒ/ | gh /ɣ/ | ||||
| voiceless | s /s/ | ł /ɬ/ | sh /ʃ/ | x /x/ | h /h/ | ||||
| Approximant | voiced | r /ɾ~ɹ/ | y /j/ | w /w/ | |||||
| voiceless | wh /ʍ/ | ||||||||
Tenuis stops may be lightly voiced. Aspirated stops may be fricated [Cˣʰ] before back vowels.
Vowels
The language uses long, short and nasal vowels, and distinguishes them in writing, along with low tone:[5]
- Short:
- a /a/
- e /e/
- ı /i/
- o /o/
- ą /ã/
- ę /ẽ/
- ı̨ /ĩ/
- ǫ /õ/
- Long:
- aa /aː/
- ee /eː/
- ıı /iː/
- oo /oː/
- ąą /ãː/
- ęę /ẽː/
- ı̨ı̨ /ĩː/
- ǫǫ /õː/
- Nasal vowels are marked by an ogonek (called wįghǫą, 'its little nose', in Tlinchon) e.g. ą.
- Low tone is marked with a grave accent (called wets'aà, 'its hat', in Tlinchon), e.g. à.
- High tone is never marked.
- Short:
Grammar
Typologically, Tlinchon is an agglutinating, polysynthetic head-marking language, but many of its affixes combine into contractions more like fusional languages. The canonical word order of Tlinchon is SOV. Tlinchon words are modified primarily by prefixes, which is unusual for an SOV language (suffixes are expected).
Like Spanish and Portuguese, Tlinchon has two verbs similar to English 'be'. One is used for ways of being that are more dynamic or temporary; the other for more permanent and immutable properties. For example, nàzèe-dǫǫ̀ ts’įįlį and nàzèe-dǫǫ̀ ats’įįt’e both mean 'we are hunters', but the first means that the speakers are currently hunters (for example, part of a hunting party), while the second implies that hunting is their regular profession.
In addition to verbs and nouns, there are pronouns, clitics of various functions, demonstratives, numerals, postpositions, adverbs, and conjunctions in Tlinchon. The class of adjectives is very small, probably around two dozen words: most descriptive words are verbs rather than adjectives.
Examples
Example words and phrases:[6][7]
- Tłı̨chǫ got'ı̨ı̨̀ 'Tlinchon people'
- tłı̨ 'dog'
- tłı̨cho' 'horse' (literally 'big dog')
- łıwe / łıe 'fish'
- detʼǫ 'duck'
- eyè 'egg'
- ejietʼò 'milk'
- dìga 'wolf'
- tʼooh 'poplar'
- deh 'river'
- elà 'canoe'
- dı 'island'
- kwe 'rock'
- sìh /shìh 'mount'
- tı 'lake'
- zhah 'snow'
- chǫ /tsǫ' 'rain'
- ło 'smoke'
- kǫ̀ 'house'
- degoo 'white'
- dezǫ 'black'
- dekʼo 'red'
- dǫ nàke laànì nàtso 'strong like two people', the motto of the Tłįchǫ Government
See also
References
- ↑ Dogrib at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
- ↑ Official Languages of the Northwest Territories (map)
- ↑ Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Dogrib". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
- ↑ Statistics Canada: 2006 Census
- 1 2 Coleman, Phyllis Young (1979). Dogrib Phonology. Ann Arbor, Michigan, [etc.]: University Microfilms International.
- ↑ Saxon, Leslie; Siemens, Mary (1996). Tlinchon Yatıì Enįhtł'è = Dogrib Dictionary. Rae-Edzo, NWT, Canada: Dogrib Divisional Board of Education.
- ↑ Saxon, Leslie; Siemens, Mary (2011), Tlinchon Yatıì Multimedia Dictionary, Victoria, BC, Canada: U. of Victoria Linguistics Dept., archived from the original on 2014-05-05, retrieved 2014-05-12
External links
- Alphabet and pronunciation at Omniglot
- Tłı̨chǫ Yatıì Multimedia Dictionary
- Dictionaries and Tåîchô language sources in PDF format
- Dogrib basic lexicon at the Global Lexicostatistical Database
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