Sekani language

Sekani
Sekani
Tse'khene
Native to	Canada
Region	British Columbia
Ethnicity	1,410 Sekani people (2014, FPCC)
Native speakers	30 (2014, FPCC)
Language family	Dené–Yeniseian? Na-Dené Athabaskan Northern Athabaskan Sekani; ; ; ;
Language codes
ISO 639-3	sek
Glottolog	seka1250
ELP	Tse'khene (Sekani)
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The Sekani language is a Northern Athabaskan language spoken by the Sekani people of north-central British Columbia, Canada.

Sounds

Consonants

Sekani has 33 consonants:

		Bilabial	Alveolar		Post- Alveolar	Velar		Glottal
		Bilabial	central	lateral	Post- Alveolar	plain	labial	Glottal
Stop	unaspirated	p	t			k	kʷ
	aspirated	(pʰ)	tʰ			kʰ	kʷʰ
	ejective		tʼ			kʼ	kʼʷ	ʔ
Affricate	unaspirated		ts	tɬ	tʃ
	aspirated		tsʰ	tɬʰ	tʃʰ
	ejective		tsʼ	tɬʼ	tʃʼ
Nasal		m	n
Fricative- Approximant*	voiceless		s	ɬ	ç	x	xʷ	h
Fricative- Approximant*	voiced		z	l	j	ɣ	w

*Sekani, like other Athabaskan languages, does not contrast fricatives with approximants.

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
High	i		u
Mid	e	ə	o
Low		a

Tone

Sekani has two tones, low and high. High is the default. That is, syllables normally have high tone. Syllables phonologically marked for tone are low.

Nasalization

Nasalization of vowels is contrastive.

Ethnologue/ISO 639-3 Code

SEK

Examples ^[2]

In the practical writing system used here, the letter "u" represents the mid-central vowel and "oo" represents the high back rounded vowel. Glottal stop is represented an apostrophe.

Kwadacha Tsek'ene dialect

dune man; person
tlįį dog
wudzįįh caribou
yus snow
chǫ rain
k’wus cloud
kwùn fire
’įįbèh summer
too water
mun lake
nun land
tselh axe
ʼukèʼ foot
’àtse my grandfather
’àtsǫǫ my grandmother
lhìghè’ one
lhèkwudut’e two
tadut’e three
dįįdut’e four
ǫ yes
Tlįį duchę̀’ ’ehdasde January
Dahyusè’ nùkehde wìlę February
Nùtsʼiide March
ʼUtʼǫ̀ʼ kùnuyehde May
Jìje dinììdulh July
Yhììh nunutsunde wìlę August
Yhììh ukudeh’àsde September
’Udììtl’ǫh ’uwit’į̀į̀h October
Yus ’ut’į̀į̀h November
Khuye ’uwììjàh December

Notes

^ ^a ^b Sekani at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
^ FirstVoices: Kwadacha Tsek'ene Community Portal

Bibliography

Hargus, Sharon. (1988). The Lexical Phonology of Sekani. (Outstanding Dissertations in Linguistics). New York: Garland Publishers. ISBN 0-8240-5187-4
Mithun, Marianne. (1999). The Languages of Native North America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-23228-7 (hbk); ISBN 0-521-29875-X.

Articles

Hargus, Sharon (2009) Effects on consonant duration in Fort Ware Tsek'ene. Presented at Athabaskan/Dene Languages Conference, Eugene, OR. PDF of slides, PDF of references.
Hargus, Sharon (2009) "Causatives and transitionals in Kwadacha Tsek'ene." (slides) Presented at the Athabaskan Languages Conference, Berkeley, CA. [Supported by NSF DEL-0651853 and Kwadacha Education Society]
Hargus, Sharon (2009) "Phonetic vs. phonological rounding in Athabaskan languages." PDF of slides, PDF of references. Presented at LabPhon 12, Albuquerque, NM. (reposted July 16, 2010). The article will appear in Journal of Laboratory Phonology 3:163-193.

External links

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[e18-1] Sekani at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)

[2] FirstVoices: Kwadacha Tsek'ene Community Portal

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[2]