Tagish language

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Tagish
Tā̀gish
Native toCanada
EthnicityTagish people
Extinct2008, with the death of Lucy Wren[1][2]
Language codes
ISO 639-3tgx
Glottologtagi1240
ELPTagish

Tagish was a language spoken by the Tagish or Carcross-Tagish, a First Nations people that historically lived in the Northwest Territories and Yukon in Canada. The name Tagish derives from /ta:gizi dene/, or "Tagish people", which is how they refer to themselves, where /ta:gizi/ is a place name meaning "it (spring ice) is breaking up.[3]

The language is a Northern Athabaskan language, closely related to Tahltan and Kaska. The three languages are often grouped together as Tahltan-Kaska-Tagish; by some the three languages are considered dialects of the same language.[4] As of 2004, there was only 1 native fluent speaker of Tagish documented: Lucy Wren (Agaymā/Ghùch Tlâ).[5] She died in 2008.[6]

Classification

Tagish is among many other languages within the large language family of Na-Dene languages,[7] which includes another group of indigenous North American languages called the Athabaskan languages.[8] The Northern Athabaskan languages are often considered to be part of a complex of languages entitled Tagish-Tahltan-Kaska. The languages in this complex have an extremely similar lexicon and grammar, but differ in systems of obstruents.[4] Known alternatively as Dene K'e, Tagish is also closely related to the neighboring languages Tahitian, Kaska, and Southern Tutchone.[9]

History

The culture of the Tagish people has its roots in both coastal Indian cultures and those from the interior (Tlingit and Athapaskan respectively).[5] Trade and travel across the Chilkoot pass contributed to the mixing of these cultures. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, Tlingit-speaking peoples began to move in from the coast and intermarry with the native Tagish-speaking population. By the time outsiders first made contact in the 1880s, the majority of the people were bilingual, and the Tlingit language had replaced Tagish as the language of the majority.[5]

Tagish became less common partially because native traditions were domesticated and suppressed by colonial administration through writing because there are open ended possibilities inherent in oral dialogue which are impossible to convey through text.[10] The most significant impact on the decline of nearly every native language in Canada came when aboriginal children were forced to attend residential schools where they were forbidden to speak their own languages.[11]

After the Yukon Gold Rush in 1898, English became the majority language of the area. As the majority of children attended the English-only Chooutla Anglican school nearby, fluency in the native languages began to be lost. Language courses began to be reintroduced in the 1970s, but the programs had little funding and were not comparable to the French or English programs present. More recently, political awareness has led to movements to gain constitutional provisions for the language, as well a greater focus on in-school programs, language conferences, and public awareness.[12] For example, in 2004, Southern Tutchone and Tagish languages are being revitalized and protected through an innovative, on-line approach called FirstVoices. FirstVoices is a native language computer database and web-based teaching and development tool.[13] Tagish was one of the first to be added into the FirstVoices digital multimedia archive of endangered indigenous languages.[12] Resources on the site include sound files of name pronunciation, word lists, and some children's books written in the language.

The federal government even signed an agreement giving the territory $4.25 million over five years to "preserve, develop and enhance aboriginal languages.[14]" However, Tagish is unfortunately not one of the offered native language programs and despite these various efforts, the language is most certainty headed toward extinction as there is only one last Tagish woman who can use the language with any fluency at all.[15]

Geographic Distribution

The Tagish people make their territory in southern Yukon Territory and northern British Columbia in Canada,[3] most specifically at Tagish, which lies between Marsh Lake and Tagish Lake, and Carcross, located between Bennett and Nares Lake.[5] The majority of the area in which Tagish was spoken is made up of the Lewes and Teslin plateaus.

Phonology

The Tagish language includes aspiration, glottalization, nasal sounds, resonance, and tones.[16]

Tagish is characterized by the simplest stem-initial consonant system of the Northern Athabaskan languages, and also has a conservative vowel system as well as conserving stem-final consonants.Final glottalization is lost. Constricted vowels are pronounced with low tone.[16]

The Tagish language includes nouns, verbs, and particles. Particles and nouns are single, sometimes compounded, morphemes, but the difference is that nouns can be inflected and particles cannot. Verbs are the most complex class in this language because their stemmed morphemes have many prefixes which indicate inflectional and derivational categories.[17]

The total inventory of phonemes present in Tagish includes:[18]

Consonants

Classification
Unaspirated stops, affricates d d͡ɮ d͡z d͡zʲ g ʔ
Aspirated stops, affricates t t͡ɬ t͡s t͡sʲ k
Glottalized tʼ t͡ɬʼ t͡s t͡sʲʼ kʼ
Voiceless Continuants ɬ s sʲ x h
Voiced Continuants l z zʲ ɣ
Prenasalized stops mb nd
Nasals m n
Resonant w j

Vowels

The short vowels i, e, a, u; as well as their long counterparts iː, eː, aː, uː.

Tone

High tone is marked with (v́) on short vowels and (v́v) on long vowels while low tones remain unmarked [19]

Vocabulary/Lexis

Some women's names contain the nasalized prefix Maa which translates directly to "mother of." [19]

Writing System[20]

The language makes use of the Latin writing system. The Tagish alphabet, as seen in how it is written, is present in the table below.

Tagish Alphabet
Consonants Stops and Affricates d dl dz j g
t tl ts ch k
t' tl' ts' ch' k' '
Fricatives ł s sh x h
l z zh ÿ
Nasals m n
mb nd
Glides w y
Vowels Short i e a u
Long ī ē ā ū

Nasal vowels are denoted by a hook as follows: (ᶏ).

See also

References

  1. ^ http://www.ynlc.ca/materials/lessons/wrenl/author.html
  2. ^ Tagish at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  3. ^ a b Yinka Déné Language Institute. (2006). The Tagish Language. https://www.ydli.org/langs/tagish.htm
  4. ^ a b Alderete, J., Blenkiron, A., &Thompson, J. E. (2014). Some notes on stem phonology and the development of affricates in Tahltan (Northern Athabaskan). Ms., Simon Fraser University and Northwest Community College.
  5. ^ a b c d Greenaway, J. (2006, November 08). Tagish First Voices Project. http://www.firstvoices.com/en/Tagish/welcome
  6. ^ http://www.yukon-news.com/life/carcross-elder-steps-forward-to-continue-language-work-of-mother-and-sister/
  7. ^ Na-Dene Language Family. (2016). Salem Press Encyclopedia
  8. ^ Olson, Tamara. (1999). The Na-Dene Languages. Brigham Young University. Retrieved from http://linguistics.byu.edu/classes/Ling450ch/reports/na-dene.html
  9. ^ Moore, P., & Hennessy, K. (2006). New technologies and contested ideologies: The tagish FirstVoices project. American Indian Quarterly, 30(1), 119-137,261-262. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/216858891
  10. ^ Remie, C. (2002). Narrative and Knowledge in the Yukon Territory: A Review Article. Anthropos, 97(2), 553-557. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/40466054
  11. ^ Unrau, J. (2010, Apr 08). Parties at odds over preserving languages. Whitehorse Star Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/362432339
  12. ^ a b Moore, P. & Hennessy, K. (2006). New Technologies and Contested Ideologies: The Tagish FirstVoices Project. The American Indian Quarterly 30(1), 119-137. University of Nebraska Press. Retrieved March 9, 2017, from Project MUSE database.
  13. ^ Protecting the past with the future. (2005, Nov 07). Whitehorse Star Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/362290009
  14. ^ MacQueen, K. (1989, Sep 10). Native tongue was a sin, punishment was the strap.The Gazette Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/431847503
  15. ^ Ken MacQueen, S. N. (1989, Sep 06). The tagish language is angela sidney, age... ].CanWest News Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/460878484
  16. ^ a b Krauss, M. E., & Golla, V. K. (1978). Northern Athapaskan Languages. In Handbook of North American Indians: Subarctic (Vol. 6, pp. 67-85). Government Printing Office 1978.
  17. ^ Helm, June. (1981). Handbook of North American Indians: Subarctic. Smithsonian Institution
  18. ^ McClellan, C. (1978). Tagish. In Handbook of North American Indians: Subarctic (Vol. 6, pp. 481-492). Government Printing Office 1978.
  19. ^ a b Cruikshank, Julie. (1990). Life Lived Like a Story: Life Stories of Three Yukon Native Elders. University of Nebraska Press
  20. ^ Yukon Native Language Centre. Tagish. http://www.ynlc.ca/languages/tg/tg.html

External links

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