Tahltan, Tāłtān, also called Tałtan ẕāke ("Tahltan people language"), dah dẕāhge ("our language") or didene keh ("this people’s way") is a poorly documented

Northern Athabaskan language Northern Athabaskan is a geographic sub-grouping of the Athabaskan language family spoken by indigenous peoples in the northern part of North America, particularly in Alaska (Alaskan Athabaskans), Yukon, and the Northwest Territories. The Nort ...

historically spoken by the Tahltan people (also "Nahanni") who live in 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, ...

around

Telegraph Creek Telegraph Creek is a small community located off Highway 37 in northern British Columbia at the confluence of the Stikine River and Telegraph Creek. The only permanent settlement on the Stikine River, it is home to approximately 250 members of ...

Dease Lake Dease Lake is a small community located in the Cassiar Country of the Northern Interior of British Columbia, Canada. It is located a few hours south of the Yukon border on Stewart–Cassiar Highway (Highway 37) at the south end of the lake ...

, and

Iskut Iskut is a small, mostly Indigenous community in the Stikine Country of northwestern British Columbia. It is located on Highway 37, at the north end of Eddontenajon Lake just south of Dease Lake and the crossing of the Stikine River. Communi ...

. Tahltan is a critically endangered language.Alderete, John forthcoming
On tone length in Tahltan (Northern Athabaskan)
In: Hargus, Sharon and Keren Rice (eds.): ''Athabaskan Prosody''. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Several linguists classify Tahltan as a dialect of the same language as

Tagish The Tagish or Tagish Khwáan ( Tagish: ; tli, Taagish ḵwáan) are a First Nations people of the Athabaskan-speaking ethnolinguistic group that lived around Tagish Lake and Marsh Lake, in Yukon of Canada. The Tagish intermarried heavily with ...

and

Kaska The Kaska or Kaska Dena are a First Nations people of the Athabaskan-speaking ethnolinguistic group living mainly in northern British Columbia and the southeastern Yukon in Canada. The Kaska language, originally spoken by the Kaska, is an Athabas ...

(Krauss and Golla 1981, Mithun 1999).

Language revitalization

As of May 2013, language researcher Dr. Judy Thompson estimated that there are 30 Tahltan speakers. A new Language and Culture office is exploring evening "language immersion" classes, a Master-Apprentice program, and creating a "language nest" for teaching the language to young children. Scholarships are planned for part-time language learners. Lacking written documentation, it was unclear to the language revitalization coordinator how to teach the language, and how to explain the grammar. "After a year of study, Oscar Dennis says he, along with Reginald and Ryan Dennis, have finally cracked the code on Tahltan language’s fundamental patterns." As a

Dene language 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 ...

, like

Navajo The Navajo (; British English: Navaho; nv, Diné or ') are a Native American people of the Southwestern United States. With more than 399,494 enrolled tribal members , the Navajo Nation is the largest federally recognized tribe in the United ...

, Tahltan has “encoded” patterns in which small pieces are added to words to create meaning. "Dr. Gregory Anderson from the Living Tongues Institute visited our territory, and was so impressed with the team’s work that he said he 'couldn’t improve upon it.'" A digital archive of Tahltan recordings, located "at the Tahltan Language Revitalization Offices in

and

" can be used on iPods.

Phonology

Consonants

There are 47

consonant In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced wit ...

sounds:

Vowels

Phonological processes

* Vowel flattening. *

Consonant harmony Consonant harmony is a type of "long-distance" phonological assimilation, akin to the similar assimilatory process involving vowels, i.e. vowel harmony. Examples In Athabaskan languages One of the more common harmony processes is ''coronal harm ...

* Vowel nasalization * Vowel laxing

References

* Cook, Eung-Do. (1972). Stress and Related Rules in Tahltan. ''International Journal of American Linguistics'', ''38'', 231-233. * Gafos, Adamantios. (1999). ''The Articulatory Basis of Locality in Phonology''. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc. . (Revised version of the author's doctoral dissertation, Johns Hopkins University). * Hardwick, Margaret F. (1984). Tahltan Phonology and Morphology. (Unpublished M.A. thesis, University of Toronto, Ontario). * Krauss, Michael E. and Victor Golla. 1981. Northern Athapaskan Languages. In ''Handbook of North American Indians, Vol. 17: Languages''. Ives Goddard, ed. pp. 67–85. Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution Press. * Mithun, Marianne. (1999). ''The Languages of Native North America''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (hbk); . * Nater, Hank. (1989). Some Comments on the Phonology of Tahltan. ''International Journal of American Linguistics'', ''55'', 25-42. * Poser, William J. (2003). The Status of Documentation for British Columbia Native Languages. Yinka Dene Language Institute Technical Report (No. 2). Vanderhoof, British Columbia: Yinka Dene Language Institute. * Shaw, Patricia. (1991). Consonant Harmony Systems: The Special Status of Coronal Harmony. In Paradis, C. & Prunet, J.-F. (Eds.), ''Phonetics and Phonology 2, the Special Status of Coronals: Internal and External Evidence'' (pp. 125–155). London: Academic Press.

External links

Tahltan Central Council language page

OLAC resources in and about the Tahltan language
* Alderete, John, Tanya Bob and Thomas McIlwraith
An annotated bibliography of Tahltan language materials
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tahltan Language + Northern Athabaskan languages Indigenous languages of the North American Subarctic First Nations languages in Canada Endangered Athabaskan languages Native American language revitalization