Science Fair Project Encyclopedia

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Categories: Aboriginal peoples in the Prairie Provinces | Native American languages of the Subarctic | Northern Athabaskan languages | Languages of Canada | Endangered languages

Tasttine

The Tasttine (also Beaver) are Athapaskan aboriginals whose traditional territory is around the Peace River of Alberta, Canada. They were formerly known as the Beaver Tribe.

Contents

1 Language

1.1 Sounds

1.1.1 Consonants
1.1.2 Vowels

2 Bibliography

Language

Sounds

Consonants

Beaver has 35 consonants:

		Bilabial	Labio-velar	Post-dental	Alveolar		Post-alveolar	Velar	Glottal
		Bilabial	Labio-velar	Post-dental	central	lateral	Post-alveolar	Velar	Glottal
Stop	unaspirated				t			k
	aspirated				tʰ			kʰ
	ejective				t’			k’	ʔ
Affricate	unaspirated			ʦ̪	ʦ	tɬ	ʧ
	aspirated			ʦ̪ʰ	ʦʰ	tɬʰ	ʧʰ
	ejective			ʦ̪’	ʦ’	tɬ’	ʧ’
Nasal		m			n
Fricative	voiceless			s̪	s	ɬ	ʃ	(x)	h
Fricative	voiced			z̪	z	ɮ	ʒ	γ
Approximant			w				j

Vowels

Beaver has 10 phonemic vowels.

		Front	Central	Back
High (full)		i		u
Less-high (reduced)		ɪ		ʊ
Mid (full)	oral	e		o
Mid (full)	nasal	ẽ		õ
Less-low (reduced)			ɜ
Low (full)			a

Two vowels contrast oral and nasal qualities.

Bibliography

Cook, Eung-Do; & Rice, Keren (Eds.). (1989). Athapaskan linguistics: Current perspectives on a language family. Trends in linguistics, State of-the-art reports (No. 15). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. ISBN 0-8992-5282-6.
Story, Gillian. (1989). Problems of phonemic representation in Beaver. In E.-D. Cook & K. Rice (Eds.), Athapaskan linguistics: Current perspectives on a language family (pp. 63-98). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.