Slavey language

Slavey (Template:IPAc-en Template:Respell;<ref>Laurie Bauer, 2007, The Linguistics Student's Handbook, Edinburgh</ref> also Slave, Slavé) is a group of Athabaskan languages and a dialect continuum spoken amongst the Dene peoples of Canada in the Northwest Territories – or central Denendeh – where it also has official status.<ref name="lang">Northwest Territories Official Languages Act, 1988 Template:Webarchive (as amended 1988, 1991-1992, 2003)</ref> The languages are primarily written using a modified Latin script, with some using Canadian Aboriginal syllabics. In their own languages, these languages are referred to as: Sahtúgot’įné Yatı̨́ (spoken by the Sahtu Dene), K’ashógot’įne Goxedǝ́ (the Hare Dene dialect) and Shíhgot’įne Yatı̨́ (the Mountain dialect) in the North, and Dené Dháh (primarily by the Dene Tha' in Alberta), Dene Yatıé or Dene Zhatıé in the South.

North Slavey and South Slavey

Template:Location map+North Slavey is spoken by the Sahtu (North Slavey) people in the Mackenzie District along the middle Mackenzie River from Tulita (Fort Norman) north, around Great Bear Lake, and in the Mackenzie Mountains of the Canadian territory of Northwest Territories. The dialect has around 800 speakers.<ref name="census">Template:Cite web</ref> Northern Slavey is an amalgamation of three separate dialects:

• K’ashógot’įne (Template:Lang) Goxedǝ́: Hare, spoken by the Template:Lang - "Rabbitskin People" or Template:Lang - "Great Hare People", referring to their dependence on the varying hare for food and clothing, also called Template:Lang or Template:Lang
• Sahtúgot’įné (Template:Lang) Yatı̨́: Bear Lake, spoken by the Template:Lang or Template:Lang - "Bear Lake People", also known as Template:Lang
• Shíhgot’įne (Template:Lang) Yatı̨́: Mountain, spoken by the Template:Lang or Template:Lang - "Mountain People" or Mountain Indians, also called Template:Lang or Template:Lang - "People of the west", so called because they lived in the mountains west of the other Slavey groups, between the Mackenzie Mountains and the Mackenzie River, from the Redstone River to the Mountain River

South Slavey (Template:Lang Template:Lang or Template:Lang) is spoken by the Slavey people, who were also known as Template:LangTemplate:Refn ("people dwelling in the shelter"), in the region of Great Slave Lake, upper Mackenzie River (Template:Lang - "Big River") and its drainage, in the District of Mackenzie, northwest Alberta, and northeast British Columbia.

Some communities are bilingual, with the children learning Slavey at home and English when they enter school. Still other communities are monolingual in Slavey<ref name="Rice" /> The dialect has around 1,000 speakers.<ref name="census"/>

Alternative names: Slavi, Slave, Dené, Mackenzian

The division of Slavey dialects is based largely on the way each one pronounces the old Proto-Athapaskan sounds *dz *ts *ts’ *s and *z.

Status

North and South Slavey are recognized as official languages of the Northwest Territories; they may be used in court and in debates and proceedings of the Northwest Territories legislature. However, unlike English and French, the government only publishes laws and documents in North and South Slavey if the legislature requests it, and these documents are not authoritative.<ref>Nitah, S. (2002). One land - many voices: report of the NWT Special Committee on the Review of the Official Languages Act. Canadian Parliamentary Review 25(3), 4-8.</ref>

In 2015, a Slavey woman named Andrea Heron challenged the territorial government over its refusal to permit the ʔ character, representing the Slavey glottal stop, in her daughter's name, Sakaeʔah, despite Slavey languages being official in the NWT. The territory argued that territorial and federal identity documents were unable to accommodate the character. Heron had registered the name with a hyphen instead of the ʔ when her daughter was born, but when Sakaeʔah was 6, Ms. Heron joined a challenge by a Chipewyan woman named Shene Catholique-Valpy regarding the same character in her own daughter's name, Sahaiʔa.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Also in 2015, the University of Victoria launched a language revitalization program in the NWT, pairing learners of indigenous languages including Slavey with fluent speakers. The program requires 100 hours of conversation with the mentor with no English allowed, as well as sessions with instructors in Fort Providence.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Phonology

Consonants

		Labial	Alveolar			Post- alveolar	Dorsal	Glottal
			plain	sibilant	lateral
Plosive/ Affricate	plain	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink
	aspirated		Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink
	ejective		Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink
Fricative	voiceless			Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink
	voiced			Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink
Nasal		Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink
Approximant		Template:IPAlink					Template:IPAlink

The consonant inventories in the dialects of Slavey differ considerably. The table above lists the 30 consonants common to most or all varieties. Hare lacks aspirated affricates (on red background), which have lenited into fricatives, whereas Mountain lacks Template:IPA (on blue). In addition, for some speakers of Hare, an alveolar flap Template:IPA has developed into a separate phoneme. Prenasalized stops Template:IPA may appear in Slavey proper.

The most pronounced difference is however the realization of a series of consonants that vary greatly in their place of articulation:<ref>Krauss, Michael E. & Golla, Victor K. (1981) Northern Athapaskan Languages. Handbook of North American Indians, p. 79.</ref>

	Slavey proper	Mountain	Bearlake	Hare
Plain stop/affricate	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA, Template:IPA
Aspirated	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA
Ejective	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA
Voiceless fricative	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA
Voiced fricative / semivowel	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA

In Slavey proper, these are dental affricates and fricatives; comparative Athabaskan work reveals this to be the oldest sound value. Mountain has labials, with the voiceless stop coinciding with pre-existing Template:IPA. Bearlake has labialized velars, but has lenited the voiced fricative to coincide with pre-existing Template:IPA. The most complicated situation is found in Hare, where the plain stop is a labialized velar, the ejective member is replaced by a Template:IPA sequence, the aspirated affricate has turned into a fricative Template:IPA, and both the voiceless and voiced fricatives have been lenited to Template:IPA.

Phonological processes

The following phonological and phonetic statements apply to all four dialects of Slavey.

• Unaspirated obstruents are either voiceless or weakly voiced, e.g.
  • Template:IPA → Template:IPA or Template:IPA
• Aspirated obstruents are strongly aspirated.
• Ejectives are strongly ejective.
• When occurring between vowels, ejectives are often voiced, e.g.
  • Template:IPA → Template:IPA or Template:IPA
• Template:IPA is usually strongly velarized, i.e. Template:IPA.
• Velar obstruents are palatalized before front vowels, e.g.
  • Template:IPA → Template:IPA
  • Template:IPA → Template:IPA
  • Template:IPA → Template:IPA
• Velar fricatives may be labialized before round vowels.
  • The voiceless fricative is usually labialized, e.g.
    • Template:IPA → Template:IPA
  • The voiced fricative is optionally labialized and may additionally be deaffricated e.g.
    • Template:IPA → Template:IPA or Template:IPA or Template:IPA
• Velar stops are also labialized before round vowels. These labialized velars are not as heavily rounded as labial velars (which occur in Bearlake and Hare), e.g.
  • Template:IPA → Template:IPA
  • Template:IPA → Template:IPA
• Lateral affricates are generally alveolar, but sometimes velar, i.e.
  • Template:IPA → Template:IPA or Template:IPA
  • Template:IPA → Template:IPA or Template:IPA
  • Template:IPA → Template:IPA or Template:IPA
• Template:IPA may be velar or glottal, i.e.
  • Template:IPA → Template:IPA or Template:IPA

Vowels

Oral

	Front	Central	Back
Close	Template:IPA link		Template:IPA link
Close-mid	Template:IPA link ⟨ə⟩		Template:IPA link
Open-mid	Template:IPA link
Open		Template:IPA link

• a Template:IPA
• e Template:IPA or Template:IPA when followed by a back vowel
• ə Template:IPA or Template:IPA
• i Template:IPA or Template:IPA in syllable onset
• o Template:IPA
• u Template:IPA
• nasal vowels are marked with an ogonek accent, e.g. Template:Angle bracket Template:IPA
• Vowel length is distributed as /VV/ in the dialects of Bearlake, Slavey and Mountain.
• South Slavey does not have the Template:Angle bracket vowel.

Tone

Slavey has two tones:

• high
• low

In Slavey orthography, high tone is marked with an acute accent, and low tone is unmarked.

Tones are both lexical and grammatical.

Lexical: Template:IPA 'along' vs. Template:IPA 'rabbit'

Syllable structure

Slavey morphemes have underlying syllable structures in the stems: CV, CVC, CVnC, V, and VC. The prefixes of the stem occur as Cv, CVC, VC, CV, and C.

Stem structure	Example	English gloss
CV	tu	"water"
CVC	ʔah	"snowshoe"
CVnC	mį́h	"net"
V	-e	Postposition
VC	-éh	"with"

<ref name=Rice/>

Prefix structure	Example	English gloss
CV	de-	inceptive
CVC	teh-	"into water"
V	í-	seriative
VC	ah-	second-person singular subject
C	h-	classifier (voice element)

<ref name=Rice/>

Writing system

Slavey alphabet (1973)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

a	c	chʼ	d	ddh	dh	dl	dz	e	g
Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA
gh	h	i	j	k	kʼ	l	ł	m	mb
Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA
n	nd	o	r	s	sh	t	th	tł	tłʼ
Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA
ts	tsʼ	tth	tthʼ	tʼ	u	w	y	z	zh	ʔ
Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA

Tone is indicated with an acute accent and the ogonek indicates nasalization.

North Slavey alphabet Template:Hlist

South Slavey alphabet Template:Hlist

Morphology

Slavey, like many Athabascan languages, has a very specific morpheme order in the verb in which the stem must come last. The morpheme order is shown in the following chart.

Position	Description
Position 000	Adverb
Position 00	Object of incorporated postposition
Position 0	Incorporated postposition
Position 1	Adverbial
Position 2	Distributive (yá-)
Position 3	Customary (na-)
Position 4	Incorporated stem
Position 5	Number
Position 6	Direct Object
Position 7	Deictic
Position 8	Theme/derivation
Position 9	Aspect/derivation
Position 10	Conjugation
Position 11	Mode
Position 12	Subject
Position 13	Classifier
Position 14	Stem

<ref name=Rice>Template:Cite book</ref>

A Slavey verb must minimally have positions 13 and 14 to be proper. Here are some examples:<ref name="Rice" />

xayadedhtí
Morphemes	xa	ya	de	d	h	tí
Position	1	1	9	13	13	14
Translation	'S/he prayed'

godee
Morphemes	go	∅	deeh
Position	6	13	14
Translation	'S/he talks'

dagodee
Morphemes	da	go	∅	dee
Position	4	6	13	14
Translation	'S/he stutters'

Person, number and gender

Gender

Slavey marks gender by means of prefixation on the verb theme. There are three different genders, one of which is unmarked; the other two are marked by prefixes [go-] and [de-]. However, only certain verb themes allow gender prefixes.<ref name=Rice/>

[go-] is used for nouns which mark location in either time or space. Some examples of these areal nouns are house (kǫ́é), land (déh), river (deh), and winter (xay).<ref name="Rice" /> The gender pronoun can be a direct object, an oblique object or a possessor.<ref name="Rice" />

[de-] marks wood, leaves and branches. This gender is optional: some speakers use it and others do not.<ref name=Rice/>

Number

Slavey marks number in the subject prefixes in position 12. The dual is marked by the prefix łéh- (Sl)/łe- (Bl)/le- (Hr).

ni̒łe̒gehtthe

'They two got stuck in a narrow passage.'

The plural is marked with the prefix go-.

Dahgogehthe

'They dance.'

ʔeha̒goni̒dhe

'We go for meat.'

Person

Slavey has first, second, third, and fourth person. When in position 12, acting as a subject, first-person singular is /h-/, second-person singular is /ne-/, first-person dual/plural is /i̒d-/, and second person plural is marked by /ah-/. Third person is not marked in this position. When occurring as a direct or indirect object, the pronoun prefixes change and fourth person becomes relevant.

• First-person singular takes se-.
• Second-person singular takes ne-
• Third person is marked by be-/me-
• Fourth person is marked by ye-<ref name=Rice/>

Classification

Like most Athabaskan languages, Slavey has a multitude of classifications. There are five basic categories that describe the nature of an object. Some of these categories are broken up further.<ref name="Rice"/>

Class	Description	Locative prefix	Active Prefix	Examples
1a	One dimensional slender, rigid and elongated objects	Ø-to	∅-tį́,-tǫ, -tǫ́	gun, canoe, pencil
1b	One directions flexible objects, ropelike; plurals	∅-ɫa	∅-ɫee, -ɫa, -ɫee	thread, snowshoes, rope
2a	two dimensional flexible	h-chú	h-chuh, -chú, -chu	open blanket, open tent, paper
2b	Two dimensional rigid objects	N/A	N/A	no specific lexical item
3	Solid roundish objects; chunky objects	∅-ʔǫ	∅-ʔáh, -ʔǫ, -ʔá	ball, rock, stove, loaf of bread
4a	Small containerful	∅-kǫ	∅-káh, -kǫ, -kah	pot of coffee, puppies in a basket, cup of tea
4b	Large containerful	h-tǫ	h-tį́h, -tǫ, tǫ́	full gas tank, bucket of water, bag of flour
5	Animate	∅-tí͔	∅-téh, -tį́, -té, h-téh, -tį	Any living thing

Tense and aspect

Tense

Slavey has only one structural tense: future. Other tenses can be indicated periphrastically.<ref name=Rice/>

An immediate future can be formed by the de- inceptive (position 9) plus y-.

Aspect

Slavey has two semantic aspects: perfective and imperfective.

The perfective is represented in position 11:

The perfective can also be used with a past tense marker to indicate that at the point of reference, which is sometime in the past, the event was completed<ref name=Rice/>

The imperfective indicates that the reference time precedes the end of the event time:

Word order

Slavey is a verb-final language. The basic word order is SOV.<ref name=Rice/>

Oblique objects precede the direct object.<ref name="Rice" />

Case

Slavey has no case markings. To differentiate between subject, direct object, and oblique objects, word order is used. The subject will be the first noun phrase, and the direct object will occur right before the verb. The oblique objects are controlled by postpositions.<ref name=Rice/>

Possessives

<ref name=Rice/>

Possessive pronoun prefixes are found in Slavey. These pronouns have the same forms as the direct and oblique object pronouns. The prefixes are listed below with examples.

se- first-person singular

bá 'mitts'

sebáré 'my mitts'

mbeh 'knife'

sembehé 'my knife'

ne- second-person singular

ts'ah 'hat'

net'saré 'your (SG) hat'

tl'uh 'rope'

netl'ulé 'your (SG) rope'

ʔe- unspecified possessor

ʔelįé 'someone's dog'

naxe-/raxe- first-person plural, second-person plural.

ts'éré 'blanket'

naxets'éré 'our blanket, your (PL) blanket'

Clauses

Conjunctions

There are both coordinating and subordinating conjunctions in Slavey.

Subordinating conjunctions

-hé "because, so"

<ref name=Rice/>

Relative clauses

There are three important parts to a relative clause. There is the head, which is the noun that is modified or delimited. The second part is the restricting sentence. The sentence modifies the head noun. The last part is the complementizer.<ref name=Rice/>

In popular culture

Slavey was the native language spoken by the fictional band in the Canadian television series North of 60. Nick Sibbeston, a former Premier of the Northwest Territories, was a Slavey language and culture consultant for the show.

See also

• Broken Slavey

Further reading

• Howard, Philip G. 1990. A Dictionary of the Verbs of South Slavey. Yellowknife: Dept. of Culture and Communications, Govt. of the Northwest Territories, Template:ISBN
• Isaiah, Stanley, et al. 1974. Golqah Gondie = Animal Stories - in Slavey. Yellowknife: Programme Development Division, Government of the Northwest Territories, .
• Mithun, Marianne. 1999. The Languages of Native North America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Template:ISBN (hbk); Template:ISBN.
• Monus, Vic, and Isaiah, Stanley. 1977. Slavey Topical Dictionary: A Topical List of Words and Phrases Reflecting the Dialect of the Slavey Language Spoken in the Fort Simpson Area. [Yellowknife: Government of the Northwest Territories, Canada?].
• Northwest Territories. 1993. South Slavey Legal Terminology. [Yellowknife, N.W.T.]: Dept. of Justice, Govt. of the Northwest Territories.
• Northwest Territories. 1981. Alphabet Posters in the Wrigley Dialect of the Slavey Language. [Yellowknife?]: Dept. of Education, Programs and Evaluation Branch.
• Tatti, Fibbie, and Howard, Philip G.. 1978. A Slavey Language Pre-Primer in the Speech of Fort Franklin. [Yellowknife]: Linguistic Programmes Division, Dept. of Education, Northwest Territories.
• Anand, Pranav and Nevins, Andrew. Shifty Operators in Changing Contexts. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. https://web.archive.org/web/20050517022822/http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~lingdept/IndexicalityWorkshop/anandnevins04.pdf
• Rice, Keren. 1989. A Grammar of Slave. Mouton Grammar Library (No. 5). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Template:ISBN.
• Sabourin, Margaret. 1975. Readers: Slavey Language. Yellowknife: Dept. of Education, Programme Development Division.