Chipewyan language

Chipewyan
Dene Suline ᑌᓀᓱᒼᕄᓀ Dëne Sųłiné
Spoken natively in	Canada
Region	Northern Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba; southern Northwest Territories and Nunavut
Ethnicity	Chipewyan people
Native speakers	11,900  (2006)
Language family	Dené–Yeniseian? Na-Dené Athabaskan Northern Athabaskan Chipewyan
Language codes
ISO 639-2	chp
ISO 639-3	chp

Dene Suline or Chipewyan (also Dëne Sųłiné, Dene Sųłiné, Dene Suliné, Dëne Suliné, Dene Soun’liné or just Dene) is the language spoken by the Chipewyan people of northwestern Canada. It is categorized as part of the Northern Athabaskan language family. Dene Suline has over 11,000 speakers in Canada, mostly in Saskatchewan, Alberta and the Northwest Territories, but only has official status in the Northwest Territories alongside 8 other aboriginal languages: Cree, Dogrib, Gwich’in, Inuktitut, Inuinnaqtun, Inuvialuktun, North Slavey and South Slavey.

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

• oral or nasal
• short or long

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

See also

• Chipewyan Syllabics

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 1-896968-28-7
• 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 (16th ed.). Dallas, TX: SIL International. ISBN 1-55671-216-6.
• Li, Fang-Kuei. (1946). Chipewyan. In C. Osgood & H. Hoijer (Eds.), Linguistic Structures of Native America (pp. 398–423). New York: The Viking Fund Publications in Anthropology (No. 6). (Reprinted 1963, 1965, 1967, & 1971, New York: Johnson Reprint Corp.).

External links

• Chipewyan at Ethnologue
• First Voices Dene Community Portal
• Our Languages: Dene (Saskatchewan Indian Cultural Centre)
  • history & background
  • reservations
  • reservation maps
  • preservation/revitalization
  • alphabet
  • grammar
  • terms/phrases (includes sound files)
• OLAC resources in and about the Chipewyan language