Tlingit language

File:WIKITONGUES- Lgeik'i and Naakil.aan speaking Lingít.webm

Two Tlingit speakers, recorded in the United States

Tlingit (Template:IPAc-en Template:Respell; ) is an endangered language indigenous to Southeast Alaska and Western Canada spoken by the Tlingit people that forms an independent branch of the Na-Dene language family. Although the number of speakers is declining, extensive effort is being put into revitalization programs in Southeast Alaska to revive and preserve the language.

Missionaries of the Russian Orthodox Church were the first to develop a written version of Tlingit by using the Cyrillic script. After the Alaska Purchase, Tlingit language use was suppressed by the United States government, though preservation programs were introduced beginning in the 20th century. Today, Tlingit is spoken natively by perhaps only 100 elders.

Tlingit's placement in the Na-Dene family has provoked much debate over the last century, with most scholars now considering it to form a separate branch in the phylum, the other being Eyak-Athabaskan (including Eyak and the Athabaskan languages). Tlingit has also attracted interest due to its unusual phonology, especially compared to Indo-European languages, and its morphological complexity.

History

The early history of Tlingit is poorly known, mostly because there was no written record until Robert de Lamanon collected numerals and five nouns during the La Pérouse expedition in 1786. The language appears to have spread northward from the Ketchikan–Saxman area towards Icy Bay since certain conservative features are reduced gradually from south to north. In fact, Tlingit northerly expansion into Eyak and Athabaskan territories was still taking place in recorded times.

The first Tlingit orthography and literacy program were created by the Russian Orthodox church during the Russian colonization of Alaska. However, following the 1867 purchase of Alaska by the United States, native languages were suppressed in favor of English language homogeneity and assimilation. It was not until the mid-20th century that the language literacy movement would regain ground, but the total number of speakers continued to decline. Beginning in the late-20th century, revitalization and preservation programs were also introduced.

Classification

Tlingit is currently classified as a distinct and separate branch of Na-Dene, an indigenous language family of North America. In 1915, Edward Sapir argued for its inclusion in the Na-Dene family, a claim that was subsequently debated by Franz Boas, P.E. Goddard, and many other prominent linguists of the time. Its inclusion in the family has proven controversial due to lack of common vocabulary despite shared phonological and grammatical features.

Studies in the late 20th century by Heinz-Jürgen Pinnow and Michael E. Krauss showed a strong connection to Eyak and hence to the Athabaskan languages, thus essentially proving the Na-Dene family as including Tlingit.

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, with some borrowing from its long proximity with Tlingit. However, some contemporary linguists still hold that Haida is part of the Na-Dene family – such as John Enrico, a specialist in Haida.

The first proposal linking Na-Dene and thus Tlingit to the Yeniseian languages of Siberia was made by Italian linguist Alfredo Trombetti in 1923. In the early 2000s, Edward Vajda presented empirical evidence for the existence of this super family, Dene–Yeniseian. Although support for the hypothesis has not been universal, it has been called "the first demonstration of a plausible genealogical link between languages of Eurasia and languages of the Americas".

Geographic distribution

The Tlingit language was traditionally spoken from near the mouth of the Copper River at Controller Bay down the open coast of the Gulf of Alaska and throughout almost all of the islands of the Alexander Archipelago in Southeast Alaska. It is characterized by about four distinct dialects, but they are mostly mutually intelligible, indicating relatively recent territorial expansion. Almost all of the area where the Tlingit language is endemic is contained within the modern borders of Alaska. The exception is an area known as "Inland Tlingit" that extends up the Taku River and into northern British Columbia and the Yukon around Atlin Lake ( "Big Lake") and Teslin Lake ( < "Big Thread"), as well as around Tagish Lake near the Chilkoot Trail (). There is a small group of speakers (about 30) in Washington as well.

Use and revitalization efforts

Tlingit is classified as critically endangered by UNESCO. In 2007, Golla reported a maximum population of 500 speakers in Alaska, and an additional 185 in Canada. The First Peoples' Cultural Council reported 2 fluent speakers in British Columbia out of an ethnic population of 400.

Tlingit courses are available at the University of Alaska Southeast, taught in part by Lance Twitchell. In 2022, the university began offering these classes for free. In April 2014, Alaska HB 216 recognized Tlingit as an official language of Alaska, lending support to language revitalization.

Dialects

Tlingit is divided into roughly four major dialects, all of which are essentially mutually intelligible:

File:Tlingit Dialects.jpg

Diagram of Tlingit dialects

• The Northern dialect is spoken in a vast area south from Yakutat () and Lituya Bay () to Angoon () and Sitka (), also covering the area around Hoonah () and Juneau ().
  • The Inland Tlingit dialect, a subdialect of Northern, is spoken in Canada around Atlin Lake and Teslin Lake.
• The Transitional dialect, having features "in-between" those of the Northern and Southern dialects, was historically spoken in and around Kake ( "Daylight"), and Wrangell ( "'s Little Lake").
• The Southern subdialects of Sanya () and Heinya () are spoken from Sumner Strait south to the Alaska-Canada border, excepting the southern end of Prince of Wales Island, which is the land of the Kaigani Haida ().
• Tongass Tlingit, the most divergent of the dialects, was once spoken south of Ketchikan to the Portland Canal, but recently died with its last speakers in the 1990s.

Most dialects of Tlingit can be classified into two-tone (Northern and Transitional) and three-tone (Southern) systems. Tongass Tlingit, however, has no tone, but rather a four-way register 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, essentially a rapid opening of the glottis once articulation is begun, resulting in fading of volume and pitch.)

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's discovery of the Tongass dialect in the late 1970s has shown that the Tongass vowel system is adequate to predict the tonal features all the other dialects, but that 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, which has led some to believe that the Tongass system was inherited from Coast Tsimshian. However, the Tongass system also shows remarkable similarity to the Eyak system, suggesting that Tongass retained features from Proto-Na-Dene which instead developed into tonal systems in most of the Athabaskan languages and the other dialects of Tlingit.

Phonology

Tlingit has a complex phonological system compared to Indo-European languages such as English or Spanish. It has an almost complete series of ejective consonants accompanying its stop, fricative, and affricate consonants. The only missing consonant in the Tlingit ejective series is . The phonology is also typologically unusual in that it has several laterals but no voiced and for having no labials in most dialects, except for and in recent English loanwords.

Consonants

The consonants in the table are given in the IPA, with the popular orthography equivalents in brackets. Dialectal, obsolete, and marginal consonants are given in parentheses.

Tlingit Consonants

		Labial	Alveolar			Palato- alveolar	Velar		Uvular		Glottal
			plain	sibilant	lateral		plain	labial	plain	labial	plain	labial
Plosive	unaspirated		Template:IPA link Template:Angbr	Template:IPA link Template:Angbr	Template:IPA link Template:Angbr	Template:IPA link Template:Angbr	Template:IPA link Template:Angbr	Template:IPA link Template:Angbr	Template:IPA link Template:Angbr	Template:IPA link Template:Angbr	Template:IPA link Template:Angbr	(Template:IPA link) Template:AngbrTemplate:Efn
	aspirated		Template:IPA link Template:Angbr	Template:IPA link Template:Angbr	Template:IPA link Template:Angbr	Template:IPA link Template:Angbr	Template:IPA link Template:Angbr	Template:IPA link Template:Angbr	Template:IPA link Template:Angbr	Template:IPA link Template:Angbr
	ejective		Template:IPA link Template:Angbr	Template:IPA link Template:Angbr	Template:IPA link Template:Angbr	Template:IPA link Template:Angbr	Template:IPA link Template:Angbr	Template:IPA link Template:Angbr	Template:IPA link Template:Angbr	Template:IPA link Template:Angbr
Fricative	voiceless			Template:IPA link Template:Angbr	Template:IPA link Template:Angbr	Template:IPA link Template:Angbr	Template:IPA link Template:Angbr	Template:IPA link Template:Angbr	Template:IPA link Template:Angbr	Template:IPA link Template:Angbr	Template:IPA link Template:Angbr	(Template:IPA link) Template:AngbrTemplate:Efn
	ejective			Template:IPA link Template:Angbr	Template:IPA link Template:Angbr		Template:IPA link Template:Angbr	Template:IPA link Template:Angbr	Template:IPA link Template:Angbr	Template:IPA link Template:Angbr
Sonorant		(Template:IPA link) Template:AngbrTemplate:Efn	Template:IPA link Template:Angbr		(Template:IPA link) Template:AngbrTemplate:Efn	Template:IPA link Template:Angbr	(Template:IPA link) Template:AngbrTemplate:Efn	Template:IPA link Template:Angbr

Young speakers and second-language learners are increasingly making a voiced/unvoiced distinction between consonants, rather than the traditional unaspirated/aspirated distinction. This is probably due to the influence of English, which makes a similar distinction.

Phonetic analysis shows that all Tlingit word final non-ejective stops are unaspirated. This analysis also has phonological basis, as words with final non-ejective stops that are suffixed with vowels maintain a non-aspirated pronunciation. This is reflected by the orthography, which uses the graphemes for unaspirated sounds, Template:Angbr, when a vowel is suffixed. For example, Template:Ipa ("fish") becomes Template:Ipa ("my fish").

Phonetic analysis also shows that the ejective fricatives in Tlingit are in fact true ejectives, with complete closure of the glottis before frication begins and the larynx raising in the same manner as with ejective stops. This contrasts with common analyses in some other languages with ejective fricatives, which considers them a sequence of fricative and glottal stop.

Vowels

Tlingit has eight phonemic vowels, four of these distinguished formally by length. However, shorter vowels are typically pronounced more centralized, or less tense.

Tlingit Vowels

	Tense/Long			Lax/Short
	front	central	back	front	central	back
close	Template:IPA link Template:Angbr		Template:IPA link Template:Angbr	Template:IPA link Template:Angbr		Template:IPA link Template:Angbr
mid	Template:IPA link Template:Angbr			Template:IPA link Template:Angbr		Template:IPA link Template:Angbr
open			Template:IPA link Template:AngbrTemplate:Efn

Word onset is always consonantal in Tlingit. Thus, in order to avoid a word starting with a vowel, an initial vowel is always preceded by either or . The former is most common, while the latter occurs in conjunction with the prefix . For example:

But when the perfective prefix is word-initial, the glottal stop appears to ensure that the word begins with a consonant.

In contrast, when prefixed with , the same verbal root (, "hot") becomes rather than * .

Tone

Tone is contrastive in all dialects of Tlingit but Tongass. In the Northern and Transitional dialects, there are high and low tones, and in the Southern dialect there is an additional falling tone. Rather than tone, Tongass Tlingit has a register system of vowel phonation and glottalization that corresponds to the tone systems of other dialects. An illustration of some of these correspondences can be seen below.

Tongass register			Southern tone			Northern tone			Example translation
notation	description	example	notation	description	example	notation	description	example
V	short		V́	high tone		V́	high tone		"head"
VV	long		V́V	long high tone		V́V	long high tone		"woman"
VV'	long glottalized		V̂V	long falling tone		V́V	long high tone		"man"
VV`	long fading		V̀V	long low tone		V̀V	long low tone		"land"

Writing system

The very first instance of written Tlingit presents itself from the La Pérouse expedition in 1786, where for example, ("one") was transcribed as Template:Tlit. A more formal orthography based on the Cyrillic alphabet was created by the Russians during their colonization of Alaska. However, after Alaska was acquired by the United States, native language literacy was discouraged, and until the latter half of the 20th century, Tlingit was only written by linguists for the purpose of phonetic transcription.

The most widespread orthography used today is based off of the transcription systems of some of these linguists, particularly Constance Naish and Gillian Story. Like other popular writing systems, it uses the letters for voiced obstruents to represent unaspirated sounds; e.g., Template:Angbr for . Uvular sounds are distinguished from velars by an underline; that is, Template:Angbr for . Typing an underline was straightforward on the typewriters of the 20th century, but it is no longer so on modern computers. Thus, an alternative "email" orthography was developed in the 1990s that replaces the underline with an appended Template:Angbr; so, Template:Angbr becomes Template:Angbr, and so on.

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, and long low vowels are marked with a grave accent. Short low vowels are unmarked. So, Coastal Tlingit Template:Angbr and Template:Angbr are Inland Template:Angbr and Template:Angbr respectively. Coastal Template:Angbr and Template:Angbr are Inland Template:Angbr and Template:Angbr; Coastal Template:Angbr and Template:Angbr are Inland Template:Angbr and Template:Angbr; and Coastal Template:Angbr and Template:Angbr are Inland Template:Angbr and Template:Angbr.

Grammar

Tlingit is highly synthetic and agglutinating, although it has some traits of a fusional language, and is even polysynthetic to some extent. The verb, as with all the Na-Dene languages, is characteristically incorporating. Nouns are in comparison relatively simple, with many being derived from verbs.

Syntax

Tlingit is by default an SOV language, but nevertheless word order is quite flexible. The SOV order is most apparent when object and (non-pronominal) agent phrases both exist in the sentence. However, there is a tendency to restrict the arguments of the verb phrase to a single non-pronominal noun phrase, with any other arguments being integrated into the verb. This can cause the appearance of an OSV word order, but it has been shown that this is not a correct analysis of Tlingit syntax.

Nouns

See main article: Tlingit noun

Pronominals

Tlingit has a complex system of pronominals, or pronouns, which vary depending on their relationship to syntactic categories including the verb, in addition to relative agency in the third-person pronouns. The subject pronominals are incorporated into the verb in its subject slot. They are divided into three classes: the verbal object, nominal object, and postpositional object. There are also independent pronominals which are completely separate from the verb; they can be used in dependent clauses or in subject or object position.

The pronominals can be visualized in the following table.

		Subject	Object			Independent
			VO	NO	PO
1	SINGULAR		,
	PLURAL
2	SINGULAR
	PLURAL					Template:Efn
3	NEUTRAL	Ø-	, Ø-
	RECESSIVE		, Ø-
	SALIENT
REFLEXIVE			, Ø-
RECIPROCAL
Indefinite	HUMAN		,
	NON-HUMAN
PARTITIVE

The first and second person pronominals both have a distinction between singular and plural. The third person pronominals, which in object form are distinguished as neutral, recessive, and salient, communicate agency and salience. The third person may be pluralized by the addition of the word before the verb, although the plural is often communicated in other ways. The indefinite pronominals are a type of fourth person and distinguish between human and non-human referents.

The subject pronominals are all incorporated into the verb. Thus, when the subject is represented as a pronominal, the syntactic subject position of the sentence is empty. Object pronominals are divided into three classes: the verbal (VO), nominal (NO), and postpositional (PO). The verbal object pronominals function similarly to the subject pronominals in that they are incorporated into the verb and leave the syntactic object position empty when used.Template:Exn The nominal object pronominals are similar to the possessive pronouns of English.Template:Exn Postpositional object pronominals act as the object of a postposition.Template:Exn

Third person pronominals

There is only one class of third person subject in Tlingit, but there are three classes of third person object (neutral, recessive, and salient). This system of object pronominals exist in parallel to similar systems (called "anaphora") in many Athabaskan languages, notably in Navajo. All these anaphora have roots in Proto Na-Dene, although Tlingit presents a particularly complex system.

In the system, a referent can be either an agent or a non-agent. Agents can only be humans, supernatural beings, natural forces, or personified animals; by contrast, a non-agent is anything else, including other animals, inanimate objects, plants, places, and ideas. Non-agents may only be referred to using the recessive pronominals, while the pronominal for an agent is determined by the presence and situation of saliency.

Saliency is only considered when: 1. the subject is also third-person; 2. both subject and object are agents; and 3. the subject and object are opposed in the discourse (i.e., they do not refer to the same thing). If saliency is not considered, then the neutral pronominal is used for the agent object. If it is considered, then relative agency is used to determine which pronominal to use for the object. If the object has less agency than the subject, then the recessive pronominal is used; if it has more agency, then the salient pronominal is used.

Consider a situation where the protagonist of a story (who has the most agency) is the object of a sentence, while someone else (with less agency) is the subject. Then a translation of "He found her" would be:

In the opposite situation, where the subject has more agency than the object, a translation of the same sentence would be:

Conversely, if a human speaker were to sit on a chair (which is inanimate), one could say:

But if that same speaker sat on another person, one would say:

Directionals

In Tlingit, directionals are a semantic category which indicate direction relative to some stated position. The stated position can be some element of the natural environment, a structure, or a person or group of people. Syntactically, directionals are a subcategory of nouns because, like nouns, they can be arguments of verbs and objects of postpositions.

	Noun	N-dei	N-naa	Adverb (+15)
up above
down below
upstream			~	–
downstream				–
from landshore, interior
toward landshore				~
toward seashore			—
from seashore, out to sea			~
across, other side			—
inside			—
outside			—	—
back	—		—
aground, shallow water	—		—

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 of a sentence. Many of them may be suffixed with a demonstrative (), and they may also be combined with the interrogative ().

• — wh-question
• — dubitative, unlikelihood, "perhaps", "maybe, "it would seem..."
• — focus
• — interrogative (< + )
• — discovery, understanding of previously unclear information, "oh, so..."
• — second hand information, "I hear...", "they say..." (< + )
• — contrastive, "however"
• – softening, "you see"
• — dubitative, likelihood, "perhaps", "probably"
• — emphatic assertion, "indeed", "for sure"
• — mild surprise
• — strong surprise
• — rhetorical interrogative, request for corroboration, "I wonder", "perhaps"
• — hypothetical, "as if", "even if", "if only"

The combination of the focus with the demonstratives gives the frequently used particles and , and the less common and . Combination of the interrogative with the demonstratives gives the confirmative particles and ( and are uncommon), used to elicit a yes/no response from the listener.

The interrogative also usually contracts to before "also": "also?" < + .

The particle is obligatory in forming wh-question phrases. It can be combined with a demonstrative, the dubitative, the rhetorical interrogative, and the emphatic assertion:

• (< + ), , ... — focused question, "... is that?"
• (< + ) — dubitative question, "maybe?", "perhaps?"
• — "I wonder?"
• (< + ) — "(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.

• — "only then"
• — "also"
• — "first", "really!"
• — "now", "this time"
• — "be sure to"
• — "be sure not to"

Except for and , the above may occur after the focus particles.

The following are prephrasal particles, i.e. they occur before the phrase that they modify.

• — "just", "the very"
• — "only", "just"
• — "even"
• — "very"

Mobile particles

These particles may occur before or after any phrase in a clause.

• — "just," "simply," "just then"
• — "already," "by now"
• — "again", "still", "some more"

Compare the mobile particle with the postphrasal particle . Both the sentence "I need more coffee" and the sentence "I also need coffee" are acceptable. However the sentence is syntactically inadmissible because the particle is postphrasal, i.e. it cannot precede the phrase it modifies, in this case the noun phrase . The corresponding sentence with the particle in front, "I need coffee again/still" is in contrast syntactically acceptable. Thus a Tlingit listener will recognize the particle in a phrase-initial position without confusion but tone is necessary to distinguish it in a phrase-final position. For this reason the particle is often used prephrasally although it is syntactically admitted in either position. Thus the song name could also be , but placing the in front has the advantage of unambiguity, and thus seems more euphonious to native speakers.

Sentence-initial particles

These particles may only occur at the front of a sentence.

• , l — negative, "not"
• — dubitative, "perhaps"
• — optative, "hopefully"
• — contrary, "actually", "in fact"
• — "I thought..."

Tlingit-language media

The Irish TV series An Klondike (2015–2017), set in Canada in the 1890s, contains Tlingit dialogue; as does the American comedy-drama Northern Exposure.

In 2023, the Central Council of the Tlingit & Haida Indian Tribes released the first of nine Tlingit-language children's books and animated videos. Titled (lit. "orphan"), it was released on October 27 and has no accompanying English translation, which Lance Twitchell said shows that "our literature can stand on its own."

Bibliography

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Further reading

• Template:Cite report
• Template:Cite thesis
• Template:Cite thesis
• Template:Cite thesis
• (Revision of the Naish-Story dictionary of 1963.)

External links

• Lingít Yoo X̲'atángi: The Tlingit Language
• Tlingit Example Sentences with Audio 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 October 2022.)
• Tlingit Teaching and Learning Aids
  • Tlingit Noun Dictionary
  • Tlingit Verb Dictionary (unfinished)
  • Tongass Text
• Alaskan Orthodox texts (Tlingit), 1812–1920 (cf. The Alaskan Orthodox Texts Project celebrates its 10th anniversary, May 2015)
• The Russian Church and Native Alaskan Cultures: Preserving Native Languages
• 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

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