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Chipewyan language

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Chipewyan
Dene Suline
ᑌᓀᓱᒼᕄᓀ Dëne Sųłiné
Native toCanada
RegionNorthern Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba; southern Northwest Territories and Nunavut
EthnicityChipewyan people
Native speakers
11,900 (2006)[1]
Language codes
ISO 639-2chp
ISO 639-3chp
ELPDënesųłiné
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

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, Manitoba and the Northwest Territories,[1] 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.[2]

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

Demographics

In the 2011 Canada Census 11,860 people chose Dene as their mother tongue. 70.6% were located in Saskatchewan and 15.2% were located in Alberta.[3]

Not all were from the historical Chipewyan regions south and east of Great Slave Lake. The communities within the Dene/Chipewyan traditional areas are shown below:

Saskatchewan

The Dene (Dene Suline) speaking communities of Saskatchewan are located in the northern half of the province. The area from the upper Churchill River west of Pinehouse Lake all the way north to Lake Athabasca and from Lake Athabasca east to the north end of Reindeer Lake is home to 7410 people who chose Dene as their mother tongue in 2011. [4]

Prince Albert had 265 residents who chose Dene as their mother tongue in 2011, Saskatoon had 165, the La Ronge Population Centre had 55 and Meadow Lake had 30. [4]

3,050 were in the Lake Athabasca-Fond du Lac River area including Black Lake and Wollaston Lake in the communities of:

3,401 were in the Clearwater River area including Lac La Loche, Descharme Lake, Garson Lake and Turnor Lake in the communities of:

830 were in the upper Churchill River area including Peter Pond Lake and Churchill Lake in the communities of:

Manitoba

Alberta

  • Fort Chipewyan 45 out of 847 residents chose Dene as their mother tongue in 2011. [4]
  • Fort McKay 30 out of 562 residents chose Dene as their mother tongue in 2011.
  • Janvier (Janvier 194) 145 out of 295 residents chose Dene as their mother tongue in 2011.
  • Janvier South 35 out of 104 residents chose Dene as their mother tongue in 2011.
  • Cold Lake 149) 105 out of 594 residents chose Dene as their mother tongue in 2011.
  • Cold Lake 149 B) 25 out of 149 residents chose Dene as their mother tongue in 2011.

Northwest Territories

  • Fort Smith 30 out of 2093 residents chose Dene as their mother tongue in 2011. [4]
  • Fort Resolution 95 out of 474 residents chose Dene as their mother tongue in 2011. [4]
  • Lutselk'e 120 out of 295 residents chose Dene as their mother tongue in 2011. [4]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b Statistics Canada: 2006 Census Sum of 'Chipewyan' and 'Dene'.
  2. ^ Northwest Territories Official Languages Act, 1988 (as amended 1988, 1991-1992, 2003)
  3. ^ "Statistics Canada Table 1 (Aboriginal language families)". Canada Census 1011. Retrieved 2013-04-14. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k "Community Profiles". Canada Census 2011. Retrieved 2013-04-14. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)

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.).
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