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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, Inuvialuktun, and Slavey.
Sounds
Consonants
The 39 consonants of Dene Suline:
| Bilabial | Interdental | Dental | Post-alveolar | Velar | Glottal | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| central | lateral | plain | labial | ||||||
| Stop | unaspirated | ||||||||
| aspirated | |||||||||
| ejective | |||||||||
| Affricate | unaspirated | ||||||||
| aspirated | |||||||||
| ejective | |||||||||
| Nasal | |||||||||
| Trill | |||||||||
| Fricative | voiceless | ||||||||
| voiced | |||||||||
Vowels
Dene Suline has vowels of 6 differing qualities.
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| High | |||
| Upper-Mid | |||
| Lower-Mid | |||
| Low |
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 | ||||||
| nasal | |||||||
| Mid-upper | | ||||||
| Mid-lower | oral | ||||||
| nasal | |||||||
| Low | oral | ||||||
| nasal | |||||||
Dene Suline also has 9 oral and nasal diphthongs of the form vowel + .
| Front | Central | Back | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| oral | nasal | oral | nasal | oral | nasal | |
| High | ||||||
| Mid | ||||||
| Low | ||||||
Tone
Dene Suline has two tones:
- high
- low
External links
- Our Languages: Dene (Saskatchewan Indian Cultural Centre)
- history & background
- reservations
- reservation maps
- preservation/revitalization
- alphabet
- grammar
- terms/phrases (includes sound files)
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 0-9210-6417-9.
- 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.).
Languages of Canada | Northern Athabaskan languages | Indigenous languages of the North American eastern woodlands | Indigenous languages of the North American Subarctic
"Dene Suline language"