Hän language

Hän
Häł gołan
Native to Canada, United States
Region Yukon, Alaska
Ethnicity Hän people
Native speakers
20 (1997–2007)[1]
Latin (Dené alphabet)
Language codes
ISO 639-3 haa
Glottolog hann1241[2]

The Hän language (Dawson, Han-Kutchin, Moosehide) is a Native American endangered language spoken in only two places: Eagle, Alaska and Dawson City, Yukon. There are only a few fluent speakers left (perhaps about 10), all of them elderly.

It is a member of the Athabaskan language family, which is part of the larger Na-Dené family. The name of the language is derived from the name of the people, "Hän Hwëch'in", which in the language means "people who live along the river", the river being the Yukon. There are currently efforts to revive the language locally.

Phonology

Consonants

The consonants of Hän in the standard orthography are listed below (with IPA notation in brackets):

Labial Inter-
dental
Alveolar Post-
alveolar
Retroflex Velar Glottal
central lateral
Nasal [m]m []
[n]
nh
n
Stop [p]
[pʰ]
b
(p)
[t]
[tʰ]
d
t
[k]
[kʰ]
g
k
[ʔ]
 
ʼ
 
[]t’ []k’
[ᵐb]mb [ⁿd]nd
Affricate []
[tθʰ]
ddh
tth
[ts]
[tsʰ]
dz
ts
[]
[tɬʰ]
dl
tl
[]
[tʃʰ]
dj
ch
[ʈʂ]
[ʈʂʰ]
dr
tr
[tθʼ]tth’ [tsʼ]ts’ [tɬʼ]tl’ [tʃʼ]ch’ [ʈʂʼ]tr’
[ⁿdʒ]nj
Fricative [θ]
[ð]
th
dh
[s]
[z]
s
z
[ɬ]
[n]
ł
l
[ʃ]
[ʒ]
sh
zh
[ʂ]
[ʐ]
sr
zr
[x]
[ɣ]
kh
gh
[h]h
Approximant [ɬ]l []
[j]
yh
y
[ɻ̥]
[ɻ]
rh
r
[]
[w]
wh
w

Vowels

  • short
    • a [a]
    • ä [ɑ]
    • e [e]
    • ë [ə]
    • i [i]
    • o [o]
    • u [u]
  • long
    • aa [aː]
    • ää [ɑː]
    • ee [eː]
    • ëë [əː]
    • ii [iː]
    • oo [oː]
    • uu [uː]
  • diphthongs
    • aw [au]
    • ay [ai]
    • äw [ɑu]
    • ew [eu]
    • ey [ei]
    • iw [iu]
    • oy [oi]
  • nasal vowels are marked by an ogonek accent, e.g., ą
  • low tone is marked with a grave accent, e.g., à
  • rising tone is marked with a circumflex accent, e.g., â
  • falling tone is marked with a caron (or háček), e.g., ǎ
  • high tone is never marked, e.g., a

References

  1. Hän at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
  2. Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Han". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.

External links

Bibliography

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Tuesday, August 18, 2015. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.