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| Dene Suline Dëne Sųłiné |
||
|---|---|---|
| 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 |
|
| 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 |
Sounds
Consonants
The 39 consonants of Dene Suline:
| Bilabial | Inter- dental |
Dental | Post- alveolar |
Velar/Uvular | Glottal | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| central | lateral | plain | labial | ||||||
| Nasal | m m | n n | |||||||
| Plosive | plain | b p | d t | g k | gw kʷ | ||||
| aspirated | t tʰ | k kʰ | kw kʷʰ | ||||||
| ejective | tʼ tʼ | kʼ kʼ | kwʼ kʼʷ | ɂ ʔ | |||||
| Affricate | plain | ddh tθ | dz ts | dl tɬ | j tʃ | ||||
| aspirated | tth tθʰ | ts tsʰ | tł tɬʰ | ch tʃʰ | |||||
| ejective | tthʼ tθʼ | tsʼ tsʼ | tłʼ tɬʼ | chʼ tʃʼ | |||||
| Fricative | voiceless | th θ | s s | ł ɬ | sh ʃ | hh χ | hhw χʷ | h h | |
| voiced | dh ð | z z | l ɮ | zh ʒ | gh ʁ | ghw ʁʷ | |||
| Trill | r r | ||||||||
The "velar" fricatives are actually uvular.
Vowels
Dene Suline has vowels of 6 differing qualities.
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i i | u u | |
| Close-mid | ë/e e | o o | |
| Open-mid | e ɛ | ||
| Open | a 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 | ||||
Tone
Dene Suline has two tones:
- high
- low
References
- ^ a b Statistics Canada: 2006 Census
- ^ Northwest Territories Official Languages Act, 1988 (as amended 1988, 1991-1992, 2003)
See also
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)
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.).
