Dene Suline language

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Dene Suline
Dëne Sųłiné
Spoken in: Canada 
Region: Northern Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba; southern Northwest Territories and Nunavut
Total speakers: 4,000
Language family: Na-Dené
 Athabaskan-Eyak
  Athabaskan
   Northern Athabaskan
    Northwestern Canada
     Dene Suline
Language codes
ISO 639-1: none
ISO 639-2: chp
ISO 639-3: chp

Dene Suline (also Dëne Sųłiné, Dene Sųłiné, Chipewyan, Dene Suliné, Dëne Suliné, Dene Soun’liné) is the language spoken by the Chipewyan people of central Canada (parts of Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut) and is also called Dene. Chipewyan is part of the Athabaskan family and is related to the Navajo language. This language is spoken by 4,000 out of 6,000 ethnic Chipewyans.

Dene Suline is one of the official languages of the Northwest Territories, the others being English, French, Cree, Dogrib, Gwichʼin, Inuktitut, and Slavey.

Contents

The 39 consonants of Dene Suline:

  Bilabial Interdental Dental Post-alveolar Velar Glottal
central lateral plain labial
Stop unaspirated p   t     k  
aspirated         kʷʰ  
ejective         kʼʷ ʔ
Affricate unaspirated   ʦ ʧ      
aspirated   tθʰ ʦʰ tɬʰ ʧʰ      
ejective   tθʼ ʦʼ tɬʼ ʧʼ      
Nasal   m   n          
Trill       r          
Fricative voiceless   θ s ɬ ʃ χ χʷ h
voiced   ð z ɮ ʒ ʁ ʁʷ  

The "velar" fricatives are actually uvular.

Dene Suline has vowels of 6 differing qualities.

  Front Central Back
High i   u
Upper-Mid e   o
Lower-Mid ɛ    
Low   a  

Most vowels can be either

As a result, Dene Suline has 18 phonemic vowels:

  Front Central Back
short long short long short long
 High  oral i     u
nasal ĩ ĩː     ũ ũː
 Mid-upper   
 
e       o  
 Mid-lower  oral ɛ ɛː        
nasal ɛ̃ ɛ̃ː        
 Low  oral     a    
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
High         uj ũj
Mid ej ẽj əj   oj õj
Low     aj ãj    

Dene Suline has two tones:

  • high
  • low

  • 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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