Science Fair Project Encyclopedia
Categories: Native American languages of the Subarctic | Native American languages of the eastern woodlands | Languages of Canada | Northern Athabaskan languages | Tonal languages
Chipewyan language
The Chipewyan language is the language spoken by the Chipewyan people of central Canada (parts of Alberta, Manitoba, Northwest Territories, Nunavut, Saskatchewan) 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.
Chipewyan is one of the official languages of the Northwest Territories, the others being English, French, Cree language, Dogrib, Gwich'in, Inuktitut, Inuvialuktun, and Slavey.
| Contents |
Sounds
Consonants
The 39 consonants of Chipweyan:
| Bilabial | Interdental | Dental | Post-alveolar | Velar | Glottal | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| central | lateral | plain | labial | ||||||
| Stop | unaspirated | t | k | kʷ | |||||
| aspirated | tʰ | kʰ | kʷʰ | ||||||
| ejective | t’ | k’ | k’ʷ | ʔ | |||||
| Affricate | unaspirated | tθ | ʦ | tɬ | ʧ | ||||
| aspirated | tθʰ | ʦʰ | tɬʰ | ʧʰ | |||||
| ejective | tθ’ | ʦ’ | tɬ’ | ʧ’ | |||||
| Nasal | m | n | |||||||
| Trill | r | ||||||||
| Fricative | voiceless | θ | s | ɬ | ʃ | x | xʷ | h | |
| voiced | ð | z | ɮ | ʒ | ɣ | ɣʷ | |||
Vowels
Chipewyan 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, Chipewyan has 18 phonemic vowels:
| Front | Central | Back | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| short | long | short | long | short | long | ||
| High | oral | i | iː | u | uː | ||
| nasal | ĩ | ĩː | ũ | ũː | |||
| Mid-upper | | e | o | ||||
| Mid-lower | oral | ɛ | ɛː | ||||
| nasal | ɛ̃ | ɛ̃ː | |||||
| Low | oral | a | aː | ||||
| nasal | ã | ãː | |||||
Chipewyan 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 | ||||
Tone
Chipewyan has two tones:
- high
- low
Bibliography
- 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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