Slavey language

Slavey
Slavey
North:; Sahtúgot’įné Yatı̨́; K’ashógot’įne Goxedǝ́; Shíhgot’įne Yatı̨́; South:; Dené Dháh, Dene Yatıé or Dene Zhatıé
Native to	Denendeh, Canada
Region	Northwest Territories
Ethnicity	Slavey, Sahtu
Native speakers	2,120, 65% of ethnic population (2016 census)[1]
Language family	Dené–Yeniseian? Na-Dené Athabaskan Northern Athabaskan Slavey; ; ; ;
Official status
Official language in	Northwest Territories, Canada[2]
Language codes
ISO 639-2	den
ISO 639-3	den – inclusive code; Individual codes:; scs – North Slavey; xsl – South Slavey
Glottolog	slav1253
ELP	Dene K'e (Slavey); Bearlake; Hare;
	North Slavey is classified as Definitely Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger

Slavey (/ˈsleɪvi/;[3] 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.[4] 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

Slavey language is located in Northwest Territories

Sahtu (North Slavey) communities in the Northwest Territories

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.[1]

North Slavey text carved into stone in Yellowknife

Northern Slavey is an amalgamation of three separate dialects:

K’ashógot’įne (ᑲᑊᗱᑯᑎᑊᓀ) Goxedǝ́: Hare, spoken by the Gahwié got’iné - "Rabbitskin People" or K’áshogot’ıne - "Great Hare People", referring to their dependence on the varying hare for food and clothing, also called Peaux de Lièvre or Locheaux
Sahtúgot’įné (ᓴᑋᕲᒼᑯᑎᑊᓀ) Yatı̨́: Bear Lake, spoken by the Sahtu Dene or Sahtú got’iné - "Bear Lake People", also known as Gens du Lac d'Ours
Shíhgot’įne (ᗰᑋᑯᑎᑊᓀ) Yatı̨́: Mountain, spoken by the Shıhgot’ıné, Shuhtaot'iné or Shotah Dene - "Mountain People" or Mountain Indians, also called Nahagot’iné, Nahaa or Nahane Dene - "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 (ᑌᓀ ᒐ Dené Dháh, Dene Yatıé or Dene Zhatıé) is spoken by the Slavey people, who were also known as Dehghaot'ine, Deh Cho, Etchareottine - "People Dwelling in the Shelter", in the region of Great Slave Lake, upper Mackenzie River (Deh Cho - "Big River") and its drainage, in the District of Mackenzie, northeast Alberta, and northwest 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 [5] The dialect has around 1000 speakers.[1]

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.

Phonology

Consonants

		Labial	Alveolar			Post- alveolar	Dorsal	Glottal
		Labial	plain	sibilant	lateral	Post- alveolar	Dorsal	Glottal
Plosive/ Affricate	plain	p	t	ts	tɬ	tʃ	k	ʔ
	aspirated		tʰ	tsʰ	tɬʰ	tʃʰ	kʰ
	ejective		tʼ	tsʼ	tɬʼ	tʃʼ	kʼ
Fricative	voiceless			s	ɬ	ʃ	x	h
Fricative	voiced			z	ɮ	ʒ	ɣ
Nasal		m	n
Approximant		w					j

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 /w/ (on blue). In addition, for some speakers of Hare, an alveolar flap /ɾ/ has developed into a separate phoneme. Prenasalized stops /ᵐb, ⁿd/ may appear in Slavey proper.

The most pronounced difference is however the realization of a series of consonants that varies greatly in their place of articulation:[6]

	Slavey proper	Mountain	Bearlake	Hare
Plain stop/affricate	t̪θ	p	kʷ	kʷ, p
Aspirated	t̪θʰ	pʰ	kʷʰ	f
Ejective	t̪θʼ	pʼ	kʷʼ	ʔw
Voiceless fricative	θ	f	ʍ	w
Voiced fricative / semivowel	ð	v	w	w

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 /p/. Bearlake has labialized velars, but has lenited the voiced fricative to coincide with pre-existing /w/. The most complicated situation is found in Hare, where the plain stop is a labialized velar, the ejective member is replaced by a /ʔw/ sequence, the aspirated affricate has turned into a fricative /f/, and both the voiceless and voiced fricatives have been lenited to /w/.

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.
- /k/ → [k] or [k̬]
Aspirated obstruents are strongly aspirated.
Ejectives are strongly ejective.
When occurring between vowels, ejectives are often voiced, e.g.
- /kʼ/ → [ɡˀ] or [kʼ]
/t͡sʰ/ is usually strongly velarized, i.e. [tˣ].
Velar obstruents are palatalized before front vowels, e.g.
- /kɛ/ → [cɛ]
- /xɛ/ → [çɛ]
- /ɣɛ/ → [ʝɛ]
Velar fricatives may be labialized before round vowels.
- The voiceless fricative is usually labialized, e.g.
  - /xo/ → [xʷo]
- The voiced fricative is optionally labialized and may additionally be defricated e.g.
  - /ɣo/ → [ɣo] or [ɣʷo] or [wo]
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.
- /ko/ → [kʷo]
- /kʷo/ → [k̹ʷwo]
Lateral affricates are generally alveolar, but sometimes velar, i.e.
- /tɬ/ → [tɬ] or [kɬ]
- /tɬʰ/ → [tɬʰ] or [kɬʰ]
- /tɬʼ/ → [tɬʼ] or [kɬʼ]
/x/ may be velar or glottal, i.e.
- /x/ → [x] or [h]

Vowels

Oral
	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Close-mid	e ⟨ə⟩		o
Open-mid	ɛ
Open		a

a [a]
e [ɛ] or [æ] when followed by a back vowel
ə [e] or [ie]
i [i] or [ɪ] in syllable onset
o [o]
u [u]
nasal vowels are marked with an ogonek accent, e.g. ⟨ą⟩ [ã]
Vowel length is distributed as /VV/ in the dialects of Bearlake, Slavey and Mountain.
South Slavey does not have the ⟨ə⟩ 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: /ɡáh/ 'along' vs. /ɡàh/ '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"

[5]

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)

[5]

Writing system

Slavey alphabet (1973)[7]

a	c	chʼ	d	ddh	dh	dl	dz	e	g
/a/	/tʃʰ/	/tʃʼ/	/t/	/t̪θ/	/ð/	/tɬ/	/ts/	/e/	/k/
gh	h	i	j	k	kʼ	l	ł	m	mb
/ɣ/	/h/	/i/	/tʃ/	/kʰ/	/kʼ/	/l/	/ɬ/	/m/	/ᵐb/
n	nd	o	r	s	sh	t	th	tł	tłʼ
/n/	/ⁿd/	/o/	/ɾ/	/s/	/ʃ/	/tʰ/	/θ/	/tɬʰ/	/tɬʼ/
ts	tsʼ	tth	tthʼ	tʼ	u	w	y	z	zh	ʔ
/tsʰ/	/tsʼ/	/t̪θʰ/	/t̪θʼ/	/tʼ/	/u/	/w/	/j/	/z/	/ʒ/	/ʔ/

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

North Slavey alphabet

ʔ
a
b
ch
chʼ
d
dl
dz
e
ǝ
f
g
gh
gw
h
ı
j
k
kw
kʼ
kwʼ
l
ł
m
n
o
p
pʼ
r
s
sh
t
tʼ
tł
tłʼ
ts
tsʼ
u
v
w
wh
wʼ
x
y
z
zh

South Slavey alphabet

ʔ
a
b
ch
chʼ
d
dh
ddh
dl
dz
e
f
g
gh
h
ı
j
k
kʼ
l
ł
m
mb
n
nd
o
p
pʼ
r
s
sh
t
tʼ
th
tth
tthʼ
tł
tłʼ
ts
tsʼ
u
v
w
x
y
z
zh

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

[5]

A Slavey verb must minimally have positions 13 and 14 to be proper. Here are some examples:[5]

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.[5]

[go-] is used for nouns which mark location in either time or space. Some examples of these areal nouns are house (ko̜̒e̒), land (de̒h), river (deh), and winder (xay).[5] The gender pronoun can be a direct object, an oblique object or a possessor.[5]

ex:

kú̜e̒

house

godetl’e̒h

3SG.paints.area

'S/he is painting the house.'

ex:

ko̜̒e̒

house

gocha

area.in

shelter

'in the shelter of the house'

ex:

ko̜̒e̒

house

godeshįte̒ee

area.floor

'floor of the house'

[de-] marks wood, leaves and branches. This gender is optional: some speakers use it and others do not.[5]

ex:

tse

wood

de̜la

'wood is located'

ex:

ʔo̜̒k’ay

bird

t’oge

nest

de̒ʔo̜

wooden

O

is

located

'A bird’s nest is located'

ex:

tse

wood

ts’edehdla̒

3SG.split.wood

'S/he is splitting wood.'

Number

Slavey marks number in the subject prefixes in position 12. The dual is marked by the prefix łe̒h- (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-[5]

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.[5]

Class	Description	Locative prefix	Active Prefix	Examples
1a	One dimensional slender, rigid and elongated objects	Ø-to	∅-tí͔,-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-tí͔h, -tǫ, tǫ́	full gas tank, bucket of water, bag of flour
5	Animate	∅-tí͔	∅-téh, -tí͔, -té, h-téh, -tį	Any living thing

ex:

tewhehchú

water.CL

'A clothlike object is in the water'[5]

Tense and aspect

Tense

Slavey has only one structural tense: future. Other tenses can be indicated periphrastically.[5]

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

ex:

dałe

3.FUT.start out

'S/he is just ready to go.'

ex:

nadedajéh

3.FUT.start to heal

'It is just starting to heal.'

Aspect

Slavey has two semantic aspects: perfective and imperfective.

The perfective is represented in position 11:

ex:

déhtla

3SG.PFV.start off

'S/he started off.'

ex:

whá

long

goyįdee

3SG.PFV.talk

'S/he talked for a long time.'

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 [5]

ex:

kǫ́e

house

gohtsį

3SG.PFV.build

area

PAST

'He had built a house.'

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

ex:

hejį

3

IPFV.sing

'S/he sing, s/he is singing.'

ex:

kǫ́e

house

gohtsį

3

begháyeyidá

IPFV.build

area

1SG.PFV.see

3

'I saw him building a house.'

Word order

Slavey is a verb-final language. The basic word order is SOV.[5]

ex:

Dene

man

?elá

boat

thehtsį̒

3SG.made

'The man made the boat.'

ex:

tlį

dog

ts’ǫ̀dani

child

káyį̒ta

3SG.bit

'The dog bit the child.'

Oblique objects precede the direct object.[5]

ex:

T’eere

girl

denǫ

mother

gha

for

?erákee?ee

parka

wihsį

made

'The girl made a parka for her mother.'

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.[5]

Possessives

[5]

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'

be-/me- third-person singular

ex:

melįé

3.POSS.dog

nátla

3SG.is.fast

'His/her dog is fast.'

ex:

bekée

3SG.POSS.slippers

whihtsį

1SG.made

'I made his/her slippers.'

ye- fourth person

ex:

yekée

4.POSS.slippers

whehtsį

3SG.made

'S/he made his/her slippers.' Unknown glossing abbreviation(s) (help);

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'

ku-/ki-/go- third-person plural

ex:

kulí̜é

3PL.POSS.dog

rała

3SG.is.fast

'Their dog is fast.'

ex:

goyúé

3PL.POSS.clothes

k'enáʔeniihtse

1SG.washed

'I washed their clothes.'

Clauses

Conjunctions

There are both coordinating and subordinating conjunctions in Slavey.

gots'éh "and, and then"

ex:

tse

wood

tádiihtth

1SG.cut

į

and

gots'ę

area.in

goyíi

1SG.warmed

naehddhí

'I cut some wood and then I warmed myself up inside.'

ex:

dene

people

ʔéhdá

some

jíye

berry

kanįwę

3SG.picks

gots'ę

and

ʔéhdá

some

daʔuʔa

3.OPT.fish

'Some people will pick berries and some will fish.'

kúlú, kólí, kúú, kóó, ékóó, góa "but"

ex:

ʔekó͔

there

náohtlah

1SG.opt.go

nehthę

1SG.want

góa

but

nehji

1SG.be.afraid

'I want to go there but I'm afraid.'

ex:

sine

1SG.child

ts'ó͔dane

1SG.saw

gogháiidá

3PL.but

kúlú

3SG.instead

dedine

3.became

gołį

ʔajá

"I was supposed to watch the children, but he did it instead."

ʔenįdé, nįdé, ndé, néh "if, when, whenever"

ex:

ʔįts'é

moose

gehk'é

3PL.shoot

nįdé

if

segha

1SG.for

máhsi

thanks

'If they shoot a moose, I'll be grateful.'

ex:

dora

3.head

bekwí

1SG.OPT.comb

ohts'í

3SG.wants

nįwę

of

nįdé

3SG.combs

yehts'í

4

'Whenever Dora wants to comb my hair, she combs it.' Unknown glossing abbreviation(s) (help);

-were "before"

ex:

shuruhté

1SG.OPT.go

were

to

selejée

sleep

daderéʔ

before

o͔

woodbox

ʔagúlá

3.is.full

1SG.made.area

'Before I went to bed, I filled to woodbox.'

-ts'ę "since, from"

ex:

segó͔łį

1SG.was.born

gots'ę

area.from

jo͔

here

deneilé

1SG.lived

'I lived here since I was born.'

-hé "because, so"

ex:

se

wood

wehse

3.is.wet

yihé

because

godihk'o͔

1SG.make.fire

yíle²

NEG

'Because the wood is wet, I can't make fire.'

[5]

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.[5]

ex:

ʔeyi

the

[dene]

[man]

goyidee

1SG.talked

i

COMP

híshá

3SG.is.tall

'The man whom I talked to is tall.'

ex:

lį

dog

gah

rabbit

hedéhfe

3SG.chased

I

COMP

gháyeyidá

1SG.saw

'I saw the dog that chased the rabbit.'

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.[8]

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.[9]

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.[10]

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.

References

Canada, Government of Canada, Statistics (2 August 2017). "Language Highlight Tables, 2016 Census - Aboriginal mother tongue, Aboriginal language spoken most often at home and Other Aboriginal language(s) spoken regularly at home for the population excluding institutional residents of Canada, provinces and territories, 2016 Census – 100% Data". www12.statcan.gc.ca. Retrieved 2017-11-17.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
Official Languages of the Northwest Territories Archived 2012-03-23 at the Wayback Machine (map)
Laurie Bauer, 2007, The Linguistics Student’s Handbook, Edinburgh
Northwest Territories Official Languages Act, 1988 Archived 2005-04-08 at the Wayback Machine (as amended 1988, 1991-1992, 2003)
Rice, Keren (1989). A Grammar of Slave. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter & Co. ISBN 3110107791.
Krauss, Michael E. & Golla, Victor K. (1981) Northern Athapaskan Languages. Handbook of North American Indians, p. 79.
"Slavey alphabet". SIL International. 15 September 2022.
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.
Browne, Rachel (12 March 2015). "What's in a name? A Chipewyan's battle over her native tongue". Maclean's. Retrieved 5 April 2015.
Erin Brohman; Garrett Hinchey (16 March 2015). "UVic program aims to revitalize South Slavey language in N.W.T." CBC News. Retrieved 5 April 2015.

Slavey language

North Slavey and South Slavey

Phonology

Consonants

Phonological processes

Vowels

Tone

Syllable structure

Writing system

Morphology

Person, number and gender

Gender

Number

Person

Classification

Tense and aspect

Tense

Aspect

Word order

Case

Possessives

se- first-person singular

ne- second-person singular

be-/me- third-person singular

ye- fourth person

ʔe- unspecified possessor

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

ku-/ki-/go- third-person plural

Clauses

Conjunctions

gots'éh "and, and then"

kúlú, kólí, kúú, kóó, ékóó, góa "but"

ʔenįdé, nįdé, ndé, néh "if, when, whenever"

-were "before"

-ts'ę "since, from"

-hé "because, so"

Relative clauses

Status

In popular culture

See also

References

Further reading