Tlingit language
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The Tlingit language ( ; ''Lingít'' ) is spoken by the
Tlingit The Tlingit ( or ; also spelled Tlinkit) are indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America. Their language is the Tlingit language (natively , pronounced ),
people of Southeast Alaska and
Western Canada Western Canada, also referred to as the Western provinces, Canadian West or the Western provinces of Canada, and commonly known within Canada as the West, is a Canadian region that includes the four western provinces just north of the Canada ...
and is a branch of the Na-Dene language family. Extensive effort is being put into revitalization programs in Southeast
Alaska Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S., ...
to revive and preserve the Tlingit language and culture. Missionaries of the
Russian Orthodox Church , native_name_lang = ru , image = Moscow July 2011-7a.jpg , imagewidth = , alt = , caption = Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow, Russia , abbreviation = ROC , type ...
were the first to develop a written version of Tlingit by using the
Cyrillic script The Cyrillic script ( ), Slavonic script or the Slavic script, is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking co ...
to record and translate it when the
Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...
had contact with Alaska and the coast of North America down to
Sonoma County, California Sonoma County () is a county (United States), county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 United States Census, its population was 488,863. Its county seat and largest city is Santa Rosa, California, Santa Rosa. It is to the n ...
. After the
Alaska Purchase The Alaska Purchase (russian: Продажа Аляски, Prodazha Alyaski, Sale of Alaska) was the United States' acquisition of Alaska from the Russian Empire. Alaska was formally transferred to the United States on October 18, 1867, through a ...
, English-speaking missionaries from the
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developed a written version of the language with the
Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and th ...
.


History

The history of Tlingit is poorly known, mostly because there is no written record until the first contact with Europeans around the 1790s. Documentation was sparse and irregular until the early 20th century. The language appears to have spread northward from the
Ketchikan Ketchikan ( ; tli, Kichx̱áan) is a city in and the borough seat of the Ketchikan Gateway Borough of Alaska. It is the state's southeasternmost major settlement. Downtown Ketchikan is a National Historic District. With a population at the 20 ...
Saxman area towards the Chilkat region since certain conservative features are reduced gradually from south to north. The shared features between the
Eyak language Eyak was a Na-Dené language, historically spoken by the Eyak people, indigenous to south-central Alaska, near the mouth of the Copper River. The name Eyak comes from a Chugach Sugpiaq name (''Igya'aq'') for an Eyak village at the mouth of the ...
, found around the
Copper River Copper River may refer to several places: *Copper River (Alaska), in the United States * Copper River (British Columbia), a tributary of the Skeena River The Skeena River is the second-longest river entirely within British Columbia, Canada (afte ...
delta, and
Tongass Tlingit Tongass may refer to: * Fort Tongass * Tongass people, or Taantʼa Ḵwáan, "Sea Lion Tribe", one of the main divisions of the Tlingit people and the namesake of all other "Tongass" names. * Tongass Highway * Tongass Island * Tongass Narrows, a ...
, near the
Portland Canal , image = Hyder Alaska IMG 0276 (22495379342).jpg , alt = , caption = Portland Canal from Hyder, Alaska , image_bathymetry = , alt_bathymetry = , caption_bathymetry = , location = Alaska and British Columbia , group = , coordinates ...
, are all the more striking for the distances that separate them, both geographic and linguistic.


Classification

Tlingit is currently classified as a distinct and separate branch of Na-Dene, an indigenous language family of North America.
Edward Sapir Edward Sapir (; January 26, 1884 – February 4, 1939) was an American Jewish anthropologist-linguist, who is widely considered to be one of the most important figures in the development of the discipline of linguistics in the United States. Sap ...
(1915) argued for its inclusion in the Na-Dené family, a claim that was subsequently debated by Franz Boas (1917), P.E. Goddard (1920), and many other prominent linguists of the time. Studies in the late 20th century by (Heinz-)Jürgen Pinnow (1962, 1968, 1970, int. al.) and Michael E. Krauss (1964, 1965, 1969, int. al.) showed a strong connection to
Eyak The Eyak ( Eyak: ʔi·ya·ɢdəlahɢəyu·, literally "inhabitants of Eyak Village at Mile 6"Krauss, Michael E. 1970. ''Eyak dictionary''. University of Alaska and Massachusetts Institute of Technology 1963-1970) are a Native American indigenous ...
and hence to the
Athabaskan languages Athabaskan (also spelled ''Athabascan'', ''Athapaskan'' or ''Athapascan'', and also known as Dene) is a large family of indigenous languages of North America, located in western North America in three areal language groups: Northern, Pacific C ...
. Sapir initially proposed a connection between Tlingit and Haida, but the debate over Na-Dene gradually excluded Haida from the discussion. Haida is now considered an
isolate Isolate may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * ''Isolate'' (film), a 2013 Australian film * ''Isolate'' (Circus Maximus album), 2007 * ''Isolate'' (Gary Numan album), 1992 Language * Isolating language, with near-unity morpheme/word ...
, with some borrowing from its long proximity with Tlingit. In 2004, the Haida linguist John Enrico presented new arguments and reopened the debate.
Victor Golla Victor Golla (1939–2021) was a linguist and a leading expert on the indigenous languages of California and Oregon, especially the Pacific Coast Athabaskan subgroup of the Athabaskan language family and the languages of the region that belong t ...
writes in his 2011 ''California Native Languages'', "John Enrico, the contemporary linguist with the deepest knowledge of Haida, continues to believe that a real, if distant, genetic relationship connects Haida to Na-Dene


Geographic distribution

The Tlingit language is distributed from near the mouth of the
Copper River Copper River may refer to several places: *Copper River (Alaska), in the United States * Copper River (British Columbia), a tributary of the Skeena River The Skeena River is the second-longest river entirely within British Columbia, Canada (afte ...
down the open coast of the
Gulf of Alaska The Gulf of Alaska (Tlingit: ''Yéil T'ooch’'') is an arm of the Pacific Ocean defined by the curve of the southern coast of Alaska, stretching from the Alaska Peninsula and Kodiak Island in the west to the Alexander Archipelago in the east ...
and throughout almost all of the islands of the
Alexander Archipelago The Alexander Archipelago (russian: Архипелаг Александра) is a long archipelago (group of islands) in North America lying off the southeastern coast of Alaska. It contains about 1,100 islands, the tops of submerged coastal m ...
in Southeast Alaska. It is characterized by four or five distinct dialects, but they are mostly mutually intelligible. Almost all of the area where the Tlingit language is endemic is contained within the modern borders of
Alaska Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S., ...
. The exception is an area known as "Inland Tlingit" that extends up the
Taku River The Taku River ( Lingít: ''T'aaḵu Héeni'') is a river running from British Columbia, Canada, to the northwestern coast of North America, at Juneau, Alaska. The river basin spreads across . The Taku is a very productive salmon river and its ...
and into northern
British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...
and the
Yukon Yukon (; ; formerly called Yukon Territory and also referred to as the Yukon) is the smallest and westernmost of Canada's three territories. It also is the second-least populated province or territory in Canada, with a population of 43,964 as ...
around
Atlin Lake Atlin Lake ( Lingít: ''Áa Tlein'') is the largest natural lake in the Canadian province of British Columbia. The northern tip of the lake is in Yukon, as is Little Atlin Lake. However, most of the lake lies within the Atlin District of British ...
(''Áa Tleen'' "Big Lake") and
Teslin Lake Teslin Lake is a large lake spanning the border between British Columbia and Yukon, Canada. It is one of a group of large lakes in the region of far northwestern BC, east of the upper Alaska Panhandle, which are the southern extremity of the bas ...
(''Desleen'' < ''Tas Tleen'' "Big Thread") lake districts, as well as a concentration around Bennett Lake at the end of the
Chilkoot Trail The Chilkoot Trail is a 33-mile (53 km) trail through the Coast Mountains that leads from Dyea, Alaska, in the United States, to Bennett, British Columbia, in Canada. It was a major access route from the coast to Yukon goldfields in the lat ...
(''Jilkhoot''). Otherwise, Tlingit is not found in
Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
. Tlingit legend tells that groups of Tlingit once inhabited the Stikine, Nass, and Skeena river valleys during their migrations from the interior. There is a small group of speakers (some 85) in
Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...
as well.


Use and revitalization efforts

Golla (2007) reported a decreasing population of 500 speakers in Alaska. The
First Peoples' Cultural Council The First Peoples’ Cultural Council (FPCC) is a First Nations governed Crown Corporation of the province of British Columbia, Canada. It is based in Brentwood Bay, British Columbia on Tsartlip First Nation. The organization was formerly known as ...
(2014) reported 2 speakers in Canada out of an ethnic population of 400. As of 2013, Tlingit courses are available at the
University of Alaska Southeast The University of Alaska Southeast (UA Southeast, Alaska Southeast, or UAS) is a public university with its main campus in Juneau, Alaska and extended campuses in Sitka and Ketchikan. It is part of the University of Alaska System and was estab ...
. In April 2014, Alaska HB 216 recognized Tlingit as an official language of Alaska, lending support to
language revitalization Language revitalization, also referred to as language revival or reversing language shift, is an attempt to halt or reverse the decline of a language or to revive an extinct one. Those involved can include linguists, cultural or community groups, o ...
.


Dialects

Tlingit is divided into roughly five major dialects, all of which are essentially mutually intelligible: * The Northern dialect is also called the Yakutat (''Yakhwdaat'') dialect, after its principal town and is spoken in an area south from
Lituya Bay Lituya Bay (; Tlingit: ''Ltu.aa'',. Spelled L'tua in translation of Tebenkov's log. meaning 'lake within the point') is a fjord located on the coast of the south-east part of the U.S. state of Alaska. It is long and wide at its widest point ...
(''Litu.aa'') to
Frederick Sound Frederick Sound (also called Prince Frederick Sound or Prince Frederick's Sound) is a passage of water in the Alexander Archipelago in Southeast Alaska that separates Kupreanof Island to the south from Admiralty Island in the north. Frederick So ...
. * The Transitional dialect, a two-tone dialect like the Northern dialect but has phonological features of the Southern, is historically spoken in the villages of Petersburg (''Gántiyaakw Séedi'' "Steamboat Canyon"),
Kake KAKE (channel 10) is a television station in Wichita, Kansas, United States, affiliated with ABC and owned by Lockwood Broadcast Group. The station's studios are located on West Street in northwestern Wichita, and its transmitter is located in ...
(''Khéixh' '' "Daylight"), and Wrangell (''Khaachxhana.áak'w'' "Khaachxhan's Little Lake"), and in the surrounding regions although it has almost disappeared. * The similarly-moribund Southern dialects of ''Sanya'' and ''Heinya'' are spoken from Sumner Strait south to the Alaska-Canada border, excepting Annette Island, which is the reservation of the
Tsimshian The Tsimshian (; tsi, Ts’msyan or Tsm'syen) are an Indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest Coast. Their communities are mostly in coastal British Columbia in Terrace and Prince Rupert, and Metlakatla, Alaska on Annette Island, the only r ...
, and the southern end of Prince of Wales Island, which is the land of the Kaigani Haida (''K'aayk'aani''). * The
Inland Tlingit Inland may refer to: Places Sweden * Inland Fräkne Hundred, a hundred of Bohuslän in Sweden * Inland Northern Hundred, a hundred of Bohuslän in Sweden * Inland Southern Hundred, a hundred of Bohuslän in Sweden * Inland Torpe Hundred, a hundred ...
dialect is spoken in Canada around
Atlin Lake Atlin Lake ( Lingít: ''Áa Tlein'') is the largest natural lake in the Canadian province of British Columbia. The northern tip of the lake is in Yukon, as is Little Atlin Lake. However, most of the lake lies within the Atlin District of British ...
and
Teslin Lake Teslin Lake is a large lake spanning the border between British Columbia and Yukon, Canada. It is one of a group of large lakes in the region of far northwestern BC, east of the upper Alaska Panhandle, which are the southern extremity of the bas ...
. * The Tongass Tlingit dialect was once spoken in the Cape Fox area south of
Ketchikan Ketchikan ( ; tli, Kichx̱áan) is a city in and the borough seat of the Ketchikan Gateway Borough of Alaska. It is the state's southeasternmost major settlement. Downtown Ketchikan is a National Historic District. With a population at the 20 ...
but recently died with its last speakers in the 1990s. The various dialects of Tlingit can be classified roughly into two-tone and three-tone systems. Tongass Tlingit, however, has no tone but a four-way
register Register or registration may refer to: Arts entertainment, and media Music * Register (music), the relative "height" or range of a note, melody, part, instrument, etc. * ''Register'', a 2017 album by Travis Miller * Registration (organ), th ...
contrast between short, long, glottalized, and "fading" vowels. (In the last type, the onset of the vowel is articulated normally but the release is
murmured Breathy voice (also called murmured voice, whispery voice, soughing and susurration) is a phonation in which the vocal folds vibrate, as they do in normal (modal) voicing, but are adjusted to let more air escape which produces a sighing-like ...
, essentially a rapid opening of the glottis once articulation is begun.) The tone values in two-tone dialects can be predicted in some cases from the three-tone values but not the reverse. Earlier, it was hypothesized that the three-tone dialects were older and that the two-tone dialects evolved from them. However,
Jeff Leer Jeff is a masculine name, often a short form (hypocorism) of the English given name Jefferson or Jeffrey, which comes from a medieval variant of Geoffrey. Music * DJ Jazzy Jeff, American DJ/turntablist record producer Jeffrey Allen Townes * ...
's discovery of the Tongass dialect in the late 1970s has shown that the Tongass vowel system is adequate to predict the tonal features of both the two-tone and three-tone dialects, but none of the tonal dialects could be used to predict vocalic feature distribution in Tongass Tlingit. Thus, Tongass Tlingit is the most conservative of the various dialects of Tlingit, preserving contrasts which have been lost in the other dialects. The fading and glottalized vowels in Tongass Tlingit have also been compared with similar systems in the Coast Tsimshian dialect. However, Krauss and Leer (1981, p. 165) point out that the fading vowels in Coastal Tsimshian are the surface realization of
underlying In finance, a derivative is a contract that ''derives'' its value from the performance of an underlying entity. This underlying entity can be an asset, index, or interest rate, and is often simply called the "underlying". Derivatives can be use ...
sequences of vowel and glottalized sonorant, . That is in contradistinction to the glottal modifications in Tongass Tlingit, which Leer argues are symmetric with the modifications of the consonantal system. Thus, a fading vowel is symmetric with an aspirated consonant , and a glottalized vowel is symmetric with an ejective (glottalized) consonant . That implies that the two systems have no familial relationship. Leer (1978) speculated that the maintenance of the pretonal system in Tongass Tlingit was caused by the proximity of its speakers around the Cape Fox area near the mouth of the
Portland Canal , image = Hyder Alaska IMG 0276 (22495379342).jpg , alt = , caption = Portland Canal from Hyder, Alaska , image_bathymetry = , alt_bathymetry = , caption_bathymetry = , location = Alaska and British Columbia , group = , coordinates ...
to speakers of Coastal Tsimshian, just to the south.


Phonology

Tlingit has a complex
phonological Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...
system compared to
Indo-European languages The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutc ...
such as English or
Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
. It has an almost complete series of
ejective In phonetics, ejective consonants are usually voiceless consonants that are pronounced with a glottalic egressive airstream. In the phonology of a particular language, ejectives may contrast with aspirated, voiced and tenuis consonants. Some ...
consonants accompanying its stop, fricative, and affricate consonants. The only missing consonant in the Tlingit ejective series is . The language is also notable for having several laterals but no voiced and for having no labials in most dialects, except for and in recent English
loanword A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because th ...
s.


Consonants

Consonants in the popular orthography are given in the following table, with IPA equivalents in brackets. Marginal or historical phonemes are given in parentheses. :
Nasal consonants In phonetics, a nasal, also called a nasal occlusive or nasal stop in contrast with an oral stop or nasalized consonant, is an occlusive consonant produced with a lowered velum, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. The vast majorit ...
assimilating with and the
velar Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth (known also as the velum). Since the velar region of the roof of the mouth is relatively extensive a ...
and
uvular Uvulars are consonants articulated with the back of the tongue against or near the uvula, that is, further back in the mouth than velar consonants. Uvulars may be stops, fricatives, nasals, trills, or approximants, though the IPA does not prov ...
plosives In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or simply a stop, is a pulmonic consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be made with the tongue tip or blade (, ), tongue body (, ), lips ...
is common among Tlingit-speakers of all dialects. For example, the sequence ''ng'' () is often heard as and ''ngh'' () as . Native speakers in a teaching position may admonish learners when they produce these assimilated forms, deriding them as "not Tlingit" or "too English", but it is common to later hear such speakers producing those forms themselves. It is uncertain whether this assimilation is autochthonous or if it arose from contact with English, but the former is more likely from a purely-articulatory perspective. Young speakers and second-language learners are increasingly making a voiced/unvoiced distinction between consonants, rather than the traditional unaspirated/aspirated distinction. That is because of the influence of English, which makes a similar distinction. For speakers who make the voiced/unvoiced distinction, the distribution is symmetrical with the unaspirated/aspirated distinction among other speakers. Maddieson, Smith, and Bessel (2001) note that all word final non-ejective stops are phonemically unaspirated. That contrasts with the orthography that typically represents them as aspirated stops: ''t'' for the more accurate ''d'' . There is a wide variation in ordinary speech, ranging from unreleased to a very delayed aspiration . However, the underlying phoneme is certainly unaspirated since it is consistently produced when the word is suffixed. The orthography usually but not always reflects that: ''hít'' "house" is written ''(du) hídi'' "(his) house" when marked with the possessive suffix ''-ÿí''. It is possible but has not been verified that aspirated and unaspirated stops are collapsed into a single phoneme word-finally. Maddieson and colleagues also confirm that the
ejective In phonetics, ejective consonants are usually voiceless consonants that are pronounced with a glottalic egressive airstream. In the phonology of a particular language, ejectives may contrast with aspirated, voiced and tenuis consonants. Some ...
fricatives A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in t ...
in Tlingit are in fact true ejectives, despite the widely-held assumption that ejective fricatives are not actually phonetically ejective but are as a sequence of fricative and glottal stop. In Tlingit, at least, the articulation of ejective fricatives includes complete closure of the glottis before frication begins, and the larynx is raised in the same manner as with ejective stops. Characteristically, the ejective fricatives in Tlingit feature a much smaller aperture for frication than is found in ordinary fricatives. That articulation provides increased resistance to counter the continual loss of dynamic airstream pressure. Also, ejective fricatives appear to include tightening of the pharyngeal muscles, which reduces the diameter of the air column and so further increases pressure. That pharyngeal constriction is not true pharyngealization, however, since the diameter is still greater than what is found in pharyngealized consonants in other languages.


Vowels

Tlingit has eight
vowel A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (leng ...
s, four vowels further distinguished formally by length. However, the length distinction is often in terms of
tenseness In phonology, tenseness or tensing is, most broadly, the pronunciation of a sound with greater muscular effort or constriction than is typical. More specifically, tenseness is the pronunciation of a vowel with less centralization (i.e. either mo ...
rather than length, particularly in rapid speech. For the Northern dialect, the dominant spoken dialect of Tlingit and the standard for written Tlingit, every vowel may take either high or low tone; in the orthography high tone is indicated by an
acute accent The acute accent (), , is a diacritic used in many modern written languages with alphabets based on the Latin, Cyrillic, and Greek scripts. For the most commonly encountered uses of the accent in the Latin and Greek alphabets, precomposed ch ...
(''áa'') and low tone is unmarked (''aa''). The Southern and Transitional dialects have a mid tone which is unmarked and additional low tone which is marked by a grave accent (''àa''). The Inland Tlingit orthography does not use vowel digraphs. Instead, short high vowels are marked with an acute accent, long high vowels are marked with a
circumflex The circumflex () is a diacritic in the Latin and Greek scripts that is also used in the written forms of many languages and in various romanization and transcription schemes. It received its English name from la, circumflexus "bent around"a ...
, and long low vowels are marked with a grave accent. Short low vowels are unmarked. Coastal Tlingit <áa> and are Inland <â> and <à> respectively. Coastal <éi> and are Inland <ê> and <è>, Coastal <ée> and are Inland <î> and <ì>, and Coastal <óo> and are Inland <û> and <ù>. : As noted in the vowel chart above, there is an allophone of (orthographic ''aa'') which is realized as under the influence of uvular consonants, however this is not consistent for all speakers. The backness influence arises from articulation with uvular consonants and so the word ''kháa'' "person" is often spoken as , but the word ''(a) káa'' "on (its) surface" is said as by the same speakers. Word onset is always consonantal in Tlingit and so words never begin with a vowel. Where a vowel would theoretically have occurred, such as by prefixing or compounding, the vowel is always followed by either or . The former is universal in single words, and both are found in word-medial position in compounds. The orthography does not reflect the in word-initial position, but either ''.'' or ''y'' may be seen in medial position. For example: But when the perfective prefix ''ÿu-'' is word-initial, the glottal stop appears to ensure that the word begins with a consonant.


Writing system

Until the late 1960s, Tlingit was written exclusively in phonetic transcription in the works of linguists and anthropologists except for a little-known Cyrillic alphabet used for publications by the
Russian Orthodox Church , native_name_lang = ru , image = Moscow July 2011-7a.jpg , imagewidth = , alt = , caption = Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow, Russia , abbreviation = ROC , type ...
. A number of amateur anthropologists doing extensive work on the Tlingit had no training in linguistics and so left numerous samples in vague and inconsistent transcriptions, the most famous being
George T. Emmons George Thornton Emmons (June 6, 1852 – June 11, 1945) was an ethnographic photographer and a U.S. Navy Lieutenant. He was born in Baltimore, Maryland. His father was George Foster Emmons. He graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1874. In ...
. However, such noted anthropologists as Franz Boas,
John R. Swanton John Reed Swanton (February 19, 1873 – May 2, 1958) was an American anthropologist, folklorist, and linguist who worked with Native American peoples throughout the United States. Swanton achieved recognition in the fields of ethnology and et ...
, and
Frederica de Laguna Frederica ("Freddy") Annis Lopez de Leo de Laguna (October 3, 1906 – October 6, 2004) was an American ethnologist, anthropologist, and archaeologist influential for her work on Paleoindian and Alaska Native art and archaeology in the Americ ...
have transcribed Tlingit in various related systems that feature accuracy and consistency but sacrifice readability. Two problems ensue from the multiplicity of transcription systems used for Tlingit. One is that there are many of them, thus requiring any reader to learn each individual system depending on what sources are used. The other is that most transcriptions made before Boas's study of Tlingit have numerous mistakes in them, particularly because of misinterpretations of the short vowels and ejective consonants. Accuracy of transcription can be increased by checking against similar words in other systems, or against a modern work postdating Naish and Story's work in the 1960s.


Grammar

Tlingit grammar at first glance appears to be highly
fusional Fusional languages or inflected languages are a type of synthetic language, distinguished from agglutinative languages by their tendency to use a single inflectional morpheme to denote multiple grammatical, syntactic, or semantic features. For e ...
, but this is an incorrect assumption. There are predictable processes by which the basic phonetic shapes of individual morphemes are modified to fit various phonological requirements. These processes can be described with a regular language, and such descriptions are given here on a per morpheme basis by giving rule schemas for the context sensitive phonological modification of base morphemes. Analyzing all the possible combinations of morphemes and phonological contexts in Tlingit and constructing a regular language to describe them is a daunting but tractable task. Despite not being a fusional language, Tlingit is still highly synthetic as an agglutinating language, and is even
polysynthetic In linguistic typology, polysynthetic languages, formerly holophrastic languages, are highly synthetic languages, i.e. languages in which words are composed of many morphemes (word parts that have independent meaning but may or may not be able t ...
to some extent. The verb, as with all the Na-Dené languages, is characteristically incorporating. Nouns are in comparison relatively simple, with many being derived from verbs.


Word order

Tlingit
word order In linguistics, word order (also known as linear order) is the order of the syntactic constituents of a language. Word order typology studies it from a cross-linguistic perspective, and examines how different languages employ different orders. C ...
is SOV when non-
pronominal In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun (abbreviated ) is a word or a group of words that one may substitute for a noun or noun phrase. Pronouns have traditionally been regarded as one of the parts of speech, but some modern theorists would not c ...
agent Agent may refer to: Espionage, investigation, and law *, spies or intelligence officers * Law of agency, laws involving a person authorized to act on behalf of another ** Agent of record, a person with a contractual agreement with an insuranc ...
and
object Object may refer to: General meanings * Object (philosophy), a thing, being, or concept ** Object (abstract), an object which does not exist at any particular time or place ** Physical object, an identifiable collection of matter * Goal, an ...
phrase In syntax and grammar, a phrase is a group of words or singular word acting as a grammatical unit. For instance, the English expression "the very happy squirrel" is a noun phrase which contains the adjective phrase "very happy". Phrases can consi ...
s both exist in the sentence. However, there is a strong urge to restrict the argument of the
verb phrase In linguistics, a verb phrase (VP) is a syntactic unit composed of a verb and its arguments except the subject of an independent clause or coordinate clause. Thus, in the sentence ''A fat man quickly put the money into the box'', the words ''q ...
to a single non-pronominal
noun phrase In linguistics, a noun phrase, or nominal (phrase), is a phrase that has a noun or pronoun as its head or performs the same grammatical function as a noun. Noun phrases are very common cross-linguistically, and they may be the most frequently oc ...
, with any other phrases being extraposed from the verb phrase. If a noun phrase occurs outside of the verb phrase then it is typically represented in the verb phrase by an appropriate pronoun.


Nouns

:''See main article: Tlingit noun''


Pronominals

Tlingit has a complex system of pronominals, which vary depending on their relationship to the verb. The subject pronominals are incorporated into the verb in its subject slot. The object pronominals are also technically incorporated into the verb (i.e. the verb "complex"), but most are graphically independent. They are divided into three classes, the verbal object, nominal object, and postpositional object. There are also the independent pronominals which are completely separate from the verb and can be used in dependent clauses or in subject or object position. The pronominals all have related semantic values, and their organization can hence easily be visualized in a table. : The numbers in the first column represent the usual concept of person, i.e. first, second, or third. Story and Naish identified a fourth person, but this term is inappropriate since they did not describe a clear separation between the so-called fourth person and the other impersonal pronominals. When analyzing a sentence, the pronominal type is given first, then the form (subject, object, independent) is given following a period. This uniquely represents the pronominal as a two dimensional unit. Thus 1SINGULAR SUBJECT is the first person singular subject pronominal, realized as ''xhat''. The RECIPROCAL does not uniquely identify one of the two reciprocal pronominals, but since they are both phonetically identical as ''woosh'', it is generally unnecessary to uniquely identify them. There is also a notional zeroth person which can be of subject, object, or independent form. This is not realized in Tlingit, instead it is an empty placeholder for analysis.


Subject pronominals

The subject pronominals are all incorporated into the verb. Thus when the subject is represented as a pronominal, the subject position of the sentence is empty.


Object pronominals

Object pronominals are divided into three classes, the verbal, nominal, and postpositional. The verbal object pronominals function similarly to the subject pronominals in that they preclude an explicit object when used. The nominal object pronominals are similar in some respects to the possessive pronouns of English. They precede a noun and represent the object of the noun, typically implying possession of the noun. Postpositional object pronominals function as objects to which postpositions are attached. They act as the object of a postposition in a manner similar to an ordinary noun suffixed with a postposition.


Directionals

Strictly speaking, the Tlingit directionals can be classified as nouns on the basis of their syntactic function. However, they form a distinct semantic set of nouns which indicate direction relative to some stated position. They also show stem variation depending locative suffixation, in particular with the allative suffix ''-dei''. These stem variants also occur with the adverb construction ''N1''-da-''N2''-(i)n "''N2'' ''N1''-ward" where ''N2'' is an anatomic noun and ''N1'' is a directional stem. :


Particles

Particles function as neither noun nor verb. They are restricted to positions relative to phrases in the sentence.


Focus particles

The focus particles follow the left periphery ("forephrase" per Leer) of a sentence. The Naish-Story term for them is "post-marginals". Many of them may be suffixed with a demonstrative (''-yá'', ''-hé'', ''-wé'', ''-yú''), and they may also be combined with the interrogative (''-gé''). Focus particles are stylistically written as separate words, but phonetically, they may be indivisible from the preceding utterance. * ''sá'' — wh-question * ''gé'' — dubitative, unlikelihood, "perhaps", "maybe, "it would seem..." * ''á'' — focus * ''ágé'' — interrogative (< ''á'' + ''gé'') * ''ásé'' — discovery, understanding of previously unclear information, "oh, so..." * ''ásgé'' — second hand information, "I hear...", "they say..." (< ''ásé'' + ''gé'') * ''khu.aa'' — contrastive, "however" * ''xháa'' – softening, "you see" * ''shágdéi'' — dubitative, likelihood, "perhaps", "probably" * ''dágáa'' — emphatic assertion, "indeed", "for sure" * ''shéi'' — mild surprise * ''gwáa'', ''gu.áa'' — strong surprise * ''gwshéi'', ''gushéi'' — rhetorical interrogative, request for corroboration, "I wonder", "perhaps" * ''óosh'' — hypothetical, "as if", "even if", "if only" The combination of the focus ''á'' with the demonstratives gives the frequently used particles ''áyá'' and ''áwé'', and the less common ''áhé'' and ''áyú''. Combination of the interrogative ''ágé'' with the demonstratives gives the confirmative particles ''ákwé'' and ''ákyá'' (''ák-hé'' and ''ákyú'' are uncommon), used to elicit a yes/no response from the listener. The interrogative ''ágé'' also usually contracts to ''ág'' before ''tsú'' "also": ''ág tsú'' "also?" < ''ágé'' + ''tsú''. The particle ''sá'' is obligatory in forming
wh-question A question is an utterance which serves as a request for information. Questions are sometimes distinguished from interrogatives, which are the grammatical forms typically used to express them. Rhetorical questions, for instance, are interrogat ...
phrases. It can be combined with a demonstrative, the dubitative, the rhetorical interrogative, and the emphatic assertion: * ''sáwé'' (< ''sá'' + ''áwé''), ''sáyá'', ... — focused question, "... is that?" * ''sgé'' (< ''sá'' + ''gé'') — dubitative question, "maybe?", "perhaps?" * ''ságwshéi'' — "I wonder?" * ''sdágáa'' (< ''sá'' + ''dágáa'') — "(what) on earth?", "really?"


Phrasal particles

Phrasal particles may occur after focus particles that occur with or without demonstrative finals. The following are postphrasal particles, thus they may only occur after the phrase that they modify. * ''tsá'' — "only then" * ''tsú'' — "also" * ''s'é'' — "first", "really!" * ''déi'' — "now", "this time" * ''x'wán'' — "be sure to" * ''tsé'' — "be sure not to" Except for ''x'wán'' and ''tsé'', the above may occur after the focus particles. The following are prephrasal particles, i.e. they occur before the phrase that they modify. Naish and Story call these "pre-marginals". * ''ch'a'' — "just", "the very" * ''ch'as'' — "only", "just" * ''ch'ú'' — "even" * ''tlaxh'' — "very"


Mobile particles

These particles may occur before or after any phrase in a clause. * ''tlei'' — "just," "simply," "just then" * ''déi'' — "already," "by now" * ''tsu'' — "again", "still", "some more" Compare the mobile particle ''tsu'' with the postphrasal particle ''tsú''. Both the sentence ''káaxwei tsu eetéenaxh xhat yatee'' "I need more coffee" and the sentence ''káaxwei tsú eetéenaxh xhat yatee'' "I also need coffee" are acceptable. However the sentence ''*tsú káaxwei eetéenaxh xhat yatee'' is syntactically inadmissible because the particle ''tsú'' is postphrasal, i.e. it cannot precede the phrase it modifies, in this case the noun phrase ''káaxwei''. The corresponding sentence with the ''tsu'' particle in front, ''tsu káaxwei eetéenaxh xhat yatee'' "I need coffee again/still" is in contrast syntactically acceptable. Thus a Tlingit listener will recognize the ''tsu'' particle in a phrase-initial position without confusion but tone is necessary to distinguish it in a phrase-final position. For this reason the ''tsu'' particle is often used prephrasally although it is syntactically admitted in either position. Thus the song name ''Tsu Héidei Shugaxhtootaan'' could also be ''héidei tsu shugaxhtootaan'', but placing the ''tsu'' in front has the advantage of unambiguity, and thus seems more
euphonious Phonaesthetics (also spelled phonesthetics in North America) is the study of beauty and pleasantness associated with the sounds of certain words or parts of words. The term was first used in this sense, perhaps by during the mid-20th century and ...
to native speakers. Note that ''déi'' is a homonym with the noun ''déi'' "path, way, road". ow are these differentiated in speech? The particle ''tlei'' is easily confused with ''tléil'' "no, not", but as with the ''tsu/tsú'' pair the tone makes them unambiguous.


Sentence-initial particles

These particles may only occur at the front of a sentence. Naish-Story term these "clause marginals". * ''tléik'', ''l'' — negative, "not" * ''gwál'' — dubitative, "perhaps" * ''gu.aal'' — optative, "hopefully" * ''khaju'', ''xhaju'' — contrary, "actually", "in fact" * ''khashde'' — "I thought..."


Tlingit-language media

The
Irish Irish may refer to: Common meanings * Someone or something of, from, or related to: ** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe ***Éire, Irish language name for the isle ** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...
TV series ''
An Klondike ''An Klondike'' (Irish for " The Klondike") is an Irish Western television series created by Dathaí Keane for TG4. Internationally, the series is known as ''Dominion Creek''. Set during the Klondike Gold Rush, it portrays the lives of three Ir ...
'' (2015–17), set in Canada in the 1890s, contains Tlingit dialog.


References


Further reading

* Beck, David. (2001). "Conventionality and lexical classes", pp. 19–26 in ''Proceedings of WSCLA 5: The Workshop on Structure and Constituency in Languages of the Americas'', Gessner, Suzanne; Oh, Sunyoung; & Shiobara, Kayono (eds.). Volume 5 of ''Working Papers in Linguistics''. University of British Columbia: Vancouver, British Columbia. * Bird, Sonya. (2001). "What is a word? Evidence from a computational approach to Navajo verbal morphology", pp. 27–35 in ''Proceedings of WSCLA 5: The Workshop on Structure and Constituency in Languages of the Americas'', Gessner, Suzanne; Oh, Sunyoung; & Shiobara, Kayono (eds.). Volume 5 of ''Working Papers in Linguistics''. University of British Columbia: Vancouver, British Columbia. * Boas, Franz. (1917).
Grammatical notes on the language of the Tlingit Indians
'. University of Pennsylvania Museum anthropological publications. * Cable, Seth. (2004). ''A metrical analysis of syncope in Tlingit''. Manuscript

* Nora Marks Dauenhauer, Dauenhauer, Nora M.; & Dauenhauer, Richard (Eds.). (1987). ''Haa Shuká, Our Ancestors''. Number 1 in ''Classics of Tlingit Oral Literature''. University of Washington & Sealaska Heritage Foundation: Seattle, Washington. * ——— (1990). ''Haa Tuwunáagu Yís, For Healing Our Spirit''. Number 2 in ''Classics of Tlingit Oral Literature''. University of Washington & Sealaska Heritage Foundation: Seattle, Washington. * ——— (Eds.). (1994). ''Haa K̲usteeyí, Our Culture: Tlingit life stories''. Number 3 in ''Classics of Tlingit Oral Literature''. University of Washington & Sealaska Heritage Foundation: Seattle, Washington. * ——— (Eds.). (1995). "A Tlingit ceremonial speech by Willie Marks", pp. 239–244 in Dürr, M; Renner, E.; & Oleschinski, W. (Eds.), ''Language and Culture in Native North America: Studies in honor of Heinz-Jürgen Pinnow''. Number 2 in ''LINCOM Studies in Native American Linguistics''. LINCOM: Munich, Germany. . * ——— (2000). ''Beginning Tlingit'', 4th ed. Sealaska Heritage Foundation Press: Juneau, Alaska. . First edition 1994. * ——— (2002). ''Lingít X̲'éinax̲ Sá! Say it in Tlingit: A Tlingit phrase book''. Sealaska Heritage Institute: Juneau, Alaska. . * ——— (2002). ''Intermediate Tlingit (draft)''. Manuscript. * Dauenhauer, Richard. (1974). ''Text and context of Tlingit oral tradition''. PhD dissertation. University of Wisconsin: Madison, Wisconsin. * Dryer, Matthew. (1985). "Tlingit: An object-initial language?", ''Canadian Journal of Linguistics'' 30:1–13. * Goddard, Pliny Earle. (1920). "Has Tlingit a genetic relationship to Athapascan", ''International Journal of American Linguistics'' 1:266–279. * Leer, Jeffery A. (1979). ''Proto-Athabaskan Verb Stem Variation, Part One: Phonology''. Volume 1 in ''Alaska Native Language Center Research Papers''. Alaska Native Language Center: Fairbanks, Alaska. * ——— (1990). Tlingit: A portmanteau language family? In P. Baldi (Ed.), ''Linguistics change and reconstruction methodology'' (pp. 73–98). Mouton de Gruyter: Berlin, Germany. * ——— (1991). ''The Schetic Categories of the Tlingit verb''. PhD dissertation. University of Chicago Department of Linguistics: Chicago, Illinois. * ——— (2000). "The negative/irrealis category in Athabaskan–Eyak–Tlingit", ch. 6 pp. 101–138 in ''The Athabaskan Languages: Perspectives on a Native American Language Family'', Fernald, Theodore B. & Platero, Paul R. (eds.). Volume 24 in ''Oxford Studies in Anthropological Linguistics''. Oxford University Press: Oxford, England. . * Leer, Jeff; Hitch, David; & Ritter, John. (2001). ''Interior Tlingit Noun Dictionary: The dialects spoken by Tlingit elders of Carcross and Teslin, Yukon, and Atlin, British Columbia''. Yukon Native Language Center: Whitehorse, Yukon. . * Maddieson, Ian; Smith, Caroline L.; & Bessell, Nicola. (2001). Aspects of the phonetics of Tlingit. ''Anthropological Linguistics'' 43(2): 135–176. * Naish, Constance M. (1966). ''A syntactic study of Tlingit''. Master's dissertation. University of North Dakota. * Naish, Constance M.; & Story, Gillian L. (1973).
Tlingit verb dictionary
'. Summer Institute of Linguistics: College, Alaska. * ——— (1996). ''The English-Tlingit dictionary: Nouns'' (3rd ed.; H. Davis & J. Leer, Eds.). Sheldon Jackson College: Sitka, Alaska. (Revision of th
Naish-Story dictionary of 1963
) * Pinnow, Heinz-Jürgen. (1962). "Two problems of the historical phonology of Na-Dene languages". ''International Journal of American Linguistics'', 28:162–166. * ——— (1966). ''Grundzüge einer historischen Lautlehre des Tlingit: ein Versuch''. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. * ——— (1976). ''Geschichte der Na-Dene-Forschung''. (Indiana : Beihefte ; 5). Berlin: Mann. * Swanton, John. (1911).
Tlingit
, pp. 159–204 in ''Handbook of American Indian Languages''. U.S. Government Printing Office: Washington, D.C. *


External links


Lingít Yoo X̲'atángi: The Tlingit Language
*
A Grammar of the Tlingit Language


Collection of over 1,500 audio recordings of spoken Tlingit example sentences, compiled as part of a Sealaska Heritage Institute project funded by the Administration for Native Americans between 2005 and 2009. (Online since Oct 2022.)

*
Tlingit Noun Dictionary
*

*



1812–1920 (cf
The Alaskan Orthodox Texts Project celebrates its 10th anniversary
May 2015)

* ttp://www.ynlc.ca Yukon Native Language Centre
Talking about Beliefs: The Alaskan Tlingit language today

Tlingit basic lexicon at the Global Lexicostatistical Database

Anash Interactive

Tlingit
( Intercontinental Dictionary Series)
Tlingit Information at Languagegeek

Dictionary of Tlingit
, 2009, Keri Edwards, Sealaska Heritage Institute, Juneau, Alaska; Tlingit-English/English-Tlingit, grammar at the end {{DEFAULTSORT:Tlingit Language + Na-Dene languages Subject–object–verb languages Northern Northwest Coast Sprachbund (North America) Northwest Coast Sprachbund (North America) Indigenous languages of the Pacific Northwest Coast Indigenous languages of the North American Subarctic Indigenous languages of Alaska First Nations languages in Canada Languages of the United States Endangered Dené–Yeniseian languages Native American language revitalization Official languages of Alaska