Sarcee language

Sarcee
Tsúùt’ínà
Native to Canada
Region Alberta
Ethnicity Tsuu Tina
Native speakers
 170 (2011 census)[1]
Language codes
ISO 639-3 srs
Glottolog sars1236[2]

Blitze (Sarsi), also Tsuut’ina (Tsuu T’ina, Tsu T’ina, Tsúùtínà)[3] is a language spoken by the people of the Tsuu T'ina Nation band government whose reserve and community is near Calgary, Alberta. It belongs to the Athabaskan language family, which also include the Navajo and Chiricahua of the south, and the Dene Suline and Tłı̨chǫ of the north.

The name Tsuu T'ina comes from the Tsuu T’ina self designation Tsúùt’ínà which is translated variously as "many people", "nation tribe", or "people among the beavers".

Phonology

Consonants

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

Sarcee consonants[4]
  Bilabial Alveolar Lateral Postalveolar Velar Velar Rounded Glottal
Stop tenuis   b*  [p]   d  [t]       g  [k]   gw*  [kʷ]   ’  [ʔ]
aspirate     t  [tʰ]       k  [kʰ]   kw*  [kʷʰ]
ejective     t’  [tʼ]       k’  [kʼ]   kw’  [kʷʼ]  
Affricate tenuis     dz  [ts]   dl  [tɬ]   dj  [tʃ]      
aspirate     ts  [tsʰ]   tl  [tɬʰ]   tc  [tʃʰ]      
ejective     ts’  [tsʼ]   tl’  [tɬʼ]   tc’  [tʃʼ]      
Fricative voiced     z  [z]     j  [ʒ]   γ  [ɣ]    
voiceless     s  [s]   ł  [ɬ]   c  [ʃ]   x  [x]     h  [h]
Nasal     m  [m]   n  [n]          
Approximant       l  [ɬ]   y  [j]     w  [w]  

* /p/ is only found in mimetic bu· 'to buzz' and borrowed bu·s 'cat'. The phonemic status of [kʷ] and [kʷʰ] is questionable; they might be /ku, kʰu/ before another vowel. /kʷʼ/ is quite rare but clearly phonemic.

Vowels

There are four distinct vowels in Tsuut'ina - i, a, o, and u. While a and o are fairly constant, i and u can vary considerably.

  • i varies between [i] and [e]
  • a [a]
  • o [ɒ] - The vowel o does not correspond to the sound [o].
  • u varies between [u] and [o]
  • long vowels are marked with an asterisk, e.g., a* [aː]
  • high tone is marked with an acute accent, e.g., á
  • low tone is marked with a grave accent, e.g., à
  • medial tone is marked with a macron, e.g., ā

Nouns

Nouns in Tsuut'ina are not declined, and most plural nouns are not distinguished from singular nouns. However, kinship terms are distinguished between singular and plural form by adding the suffix -ká (or -kúwá) to the end of the noun or by using the word yìná.

List of nouns

People

Nature

Noun possession

Nouns can exist in free form or possessed form. When in possessed form, the prefixes listed below can be attached to nouns to show possession. For example, más, "knife", can be affixed with the 1st person prefix to become sìmázà’ or "my knife". Note that -mázà’ is the possessed form of the noun.

Some nouns, like más, as shown above, can alternate between free form and possessed form. A few nouns, like zòs, "snow", are never possessed and exist only in free form. Other nouns, such as -tsì’, "head", have no free form and must always be possessed.

Typical possession prefixes

Bibliography

See also

References

  1. ↑ Sarcee at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
  2. ↑ Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Sarsi". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
  3. ↑ "Tsuutina-Language" page, Tsuu Tina Nation website
  4. ↑ Cook (1984: 7 ff)

External links

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