in-dene

Dene Suline language

Dene Suline (also Dëne Sųłiné, Dene Sųłiné, Chipewyan, Dene Suliné, Dëne Suliné, Dene Soun’liné or just Dene) is the language spoken by the Chipewyan people of central Canada. It is a part of the Athabaskan family and therefore related to the Navajo language. Dene Suline has over 11,000 speakers in Canada, mostly in Saskatchewan, Alberta and the Northwest Territories, but only has official status in the Northwest Territories alongside 8 other aboriginal languages: Cree, Dogrib, Gwichʼin, Inuktitut, Inuinnaqtun, Inuvialuktun, North Slavey and South Slavey.

The 39 consonants of Dene Suline:

		Bilabial	Inter- dental	Dental		Post- alveolar	Velar/Uvular		Glottal
		Bilabial	Inter- dental	central	lateral	Post- alveolar	plain	labial	Glottal
Nasal		m m		n n
Plosive	plain	b p		d t			g k	gw kʷ
	aspirated			t tʰ			k kʰ	kw kʷʰ
	ejective			tʼ tʼ			kʼ kʼ	kwʼ kʼʷ	ɂ ʔ
Affricate	plain		ddh tθ	dz ts	dl tɬ	j tʃ
	aspirated		tth tθʰ	ts tsʰ	tł tɬʰ	ch tʃʰ
	ejective		tthʼ tθʼ	tsʼ tsʼ	tłʼ tɬʼ	chʼ tʃʼ
Fricative	voiceless		th θ	s s	ł ɬ	sh ʃ	hh χ	hhw χʷ	h h
Fricative	voiced		dh ð	z z	l ɮ	zh ʒ	gh ʁ	ghw ʁʷ
Trill				r r

The "velar" fricatives are actually uvular.

Dene Suline has vowels of 6 differing qualities.

Most vowels can be either

As a result, Dene Suline has 18 phonemic vowels:

Dene Suline also has 9 oral and nasal diphthongs of the form vowel + /j/.

Dene Suline has two tones:

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 0-921064-17-9.
Cook, Eung-Do. 2006. "The Patterns of Consonantal Acquisition and Change in Chipewyan (Dene Suline)". International Journal of American Linguistics. 72, no. 2: 236.
De Reuse, Willem. 2006. "A Grammar of Dene Suline (Chipewyan) (Cook)". International Journal of American Linguistics. 72, no. 4: 535.
Elford, Leon W. Dene sųłiné yati ditł'ísé = Dene sųłiné reader. Prince Albert, SK: Northern Canada Mission Distributors, 2001. ISBN 1896968287
Gessner, S. 2005. "Properties of Tone in Dene Suline". Amsterdam Studies in the Theory and History of Linguistic Science. Series IV, Current Issues in Linguistic Theory. 269: 229-248.
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.).