Hän language

Hän
Häł gołan
Native to	Canada, United States
Region	Yukon, Alaska
Ethnicity	Hän people
Native speakers	20 (1997–2007)[1]
Language family	Dené–Yeniseian? Na-Dené Athabaskan Northern Athabaskan Hän
Writing system	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			[n̥] [n]	nh n
Stop	[p] [pʰ]	b (p)			[t] [tʰ]	d t							[k] [kʰ]	g k	[ʔ]	ʼ
					[tʼ]	t’							[kʼ]	k’
	[ᵐb]	mb			[ⁿd]	nd
Affricate			[tθ] [tθʰ]	ddh tth	[ts] [tsʰ]	dz ts	[tɬ] [tɬʰ]	dl tl	[tʃ] [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	[j̊] [j]	yh y	[ɻ̥] [ɻ]	rh r	[w̥] [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

• Hän alphabet
• Han (ANLC)

Bibliography

• Alaska Native Language Center. Alaska Native Language Center (accessed July 24, 2005).
• Mithun, Marianne. (1999). The Languages of Native North America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-23228-7 (hbk); ISBN 0-521-29875-X.