The Tsetsaut language is an extinct
Athabascan language formerly spoken by the now-extinct
Tsetsaut in the Behm and
Portland Canal area of Southeast Alaska and northwestern
British Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Situated in the Pacific Northwest between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, the province has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that ...
. Virtually everything known of the language comes from the limited material recorded by
Franz Boas in 1894 from two Tsetsaut slaves of the
Nisga'a, which is enough to establish that Tsetsaut formed its own branch of Athabaskan. It is not known precisely when the language became extinct, but it was around the 1930s.
One speaker was still alive in 1927.
The
Nisga'a name for the Tsetsaut people is "Jits'aawit"
The Tsetsaut referred to themselves as the . The English name ''Tsetsaut'' is an anglicization of , "those of the interior", used by the
Gitxsan and
Nisga'a to refer to the Athabaskan-speaking people to the north and east of them, including not only the Tsetsaut but some
Tahltan and
Sekani.
Vocabulary
The examples by
Merritt Ruhlen:
Bibliography
* Boas, Franz, and Pliny Earle Goddard (1924) "Ts'ets'aut, an Athapascan Language from Portland Canal, British Columbia." ''International Journal of American Linguistics,'' vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 1–35.
* Collison, W. H. (1915) ''In the Wake of the War Canoe: A Stirring Record of Forty Years' Successful Labour, Peril and Adventure amongst the Savage Indian Tribes of the Pacific Coast, and the Piratical Head-Hunting Haida of the Queen Charlotte Islands, British Columbia.'' Toronto: Musson Book Company. Reprinted by Sono Nis Press, Victoria, B.C. (ed. by Charles Lillard), 1981.
* Dangeli, Reginald (1999) "Tsetsaut History: The Forgotten Tribe of Southern Southeast Alaska." In: ''Alaska Native Writers, Storytellers & Orators: The Expanded Edition,'' ed. by Ronald Spatz, Jeane Breinig, and Patricia H. Partnow, pp. 48–54. Anchorage: University of Alaska.
References
External links
First Nations Languages of British Columbia pageOLAC resources in and about the Tsetsaut language
{{Languages of Alaska
Extinct languages of North America
Northern Athabaskan languages
North Coast of British Columbia
Languages extinct in the 20th century
20th-century disestablishments in North America