Dene Suline language.html
 
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Dene Suline
ᑌᓀᓱᒼᕄᓀ 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

  1. ^ a b Statistics Canada: 2006 Census
  2. ^ Northwest Territories Official Languages Act, 1988 (as amended 1988, 1991-1992, 2003)

See also

External links

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.).
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