Tlingit language

Lingít
"People of the Tides"
Lingít; "People of the Tides"
People	Tlingit
Language	Lingít
Country	Tlingit Aaní

Tlingit
Tlingit
Lingít
Pronunciation	/ɬɪ̀nkɪ́t/
Native to	United States, Canada
Region	Alaska, British Columbia, Yukon, Washington
Ethnicity	10,000 Tlingit (1995)
Speakers	~50 highly-proficient L1 speakers, 10 highly-proficient L2 speakers (2020, United States); 120 in Canada (2016 census)
Language family	Dene–Yeniseian? Na-Dene Tlingit; ;
Writing system	Tlingit alphabet (Latin script)
Official status
Official language in	Alaska
Language codes
ISO 639-2	tli
ISO 639-3	tli
Glottolog	tlin1245
ELP	Tlingit
	Tlingit is classified as Critically Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger.
	This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

Two Tlingit speakers, recorded in the United States

Tlingit (English: /ˈklɪŋkɪt/ ^ⓘ KLING-kit; Lingít Tlingit pronunciation: [ɬɪ̀nkɪ́t])^[5] is an endangered language indigenous to Southeast Alaska and Western Canada spoken by the Tlingit people that forms an independent branch of the Na-Dene language family. Although the number of speakers is declining, extensive effort is being put into revitalization programs in Southeast Alaska to revive and preserve the language.

Missionaries of the Russian Orthodox Church were the first to develop a written version of Tlingit by using the Cyrillic script. After the Alaska Purchase, Tlingit language use was suppressed by the United States government, though preservation programs were introduced beginning in the 20th century. Today, Tlingit is spoken natively by perhaps only 100 elders.^[6]

Tlingit's placement in the Na-Dene family has provoked much debate over the last century, with most scholars now considering it to form a separate branch in the phylum, the other being Eyak-Athabaskan (including Eyak and the Athabaskan languages). Tlingit has also attracted interest due to its unusual phonology, especially compared to Indo-European languages, and its morphological complexity.

History

The early history of Tlingit is poorly known, mostly because there was no written record until Robert de Lamanon collected numerals and five nouns during the La Pérouse expedition in 1786.^[7] The language appears to have spread northward from the Ketchikan–Saxman area towards Icy Bay^[8] since certain conservative features are reduced gradually from south to north.^[9] In fact, Tlingit northerly expansion into Eyak and Athabaskan territories was still taking place in recorded times.^[8]^[10]

The first Tlingit orthography and literacy program were created by the Russian Orthodox church during the Russian colonization of Alaska.^[11] However, following the 1867 purchase of Alaska by the United States, native languages were suppressed in favor of English language homogeneity and assimilation.^[11]^[12] It was not until the mid-20th century that the language literacy movement would regain ground,^[11] but the total number of speakers continued to decline.^[13] Beginning in the late-20th century, revitalization and preservation programs were also introduced.^[14]

Classification

Tlingit is currently classified as a distinct and separate branch of Na-Dene, an indigenous language family of North America.^[15] In 1915, Edward Sapir argued for its inclusion in the Na-Dene family,^[16] a claim that was subsequently debated by Franz Boas, P.E. Goddard, and many other prominent linguists of the time.^[17] Its inclusion in the family has proven controversial due to lack of common vocabulary despite shared phonological and grammatical features.^[18]

Studies in the late 20th century by Heinz-Jürgen Pinnow and Michael E. Krauss showed a strong connection to Eyak and hence to the Athabaskan languages, thus essentially proving the Na-Dene family as including Tlingit.^[18]

Sapir initially proposed a connection between Tlingit and Haida,^[16] but the debate over Na-Dene gradually excluded Haida from the discussion. Haida is now considered an isolate,^[19] with some borrowing from its long proximity with Tlingit. However, some contemporary linguists still hold that Haida is part of the Na-Dene family, such as John Enrico, a specialist in Haida.^[20]

The first proposal linking Na-Dene and thus Tlingit to the Yeniseian languages of Siberia was made by Italian linguist Alfredo Trombetti in 1923.^[21] In the early 2000s, Edward Vajda presented empirical evidence for the existence of this super family, Dene–Yeniseian.^[22] Although support for the hypothesis has not been universal,^[23] it has been called "the first demonstration of a plausible genealogical link between languages of Eurasia and languages of the Americas".^[24]

Geographic distribution

The Tlingit language was traditionally spoken from near the mouth of the Copper River at Controller Bay down the open coast of the Gulf of Alaska and throughout almost all of the islands of the Alexander Archipelago in Southeast Alaska.^[25]^[26] It is characterized by about four distinct dialects,^[27]^[28] but they are mostly mutually intelligible,^[10] indicating relatively recent territorial expansion.^[10]^[29] Almost all of the area where the Tlingit language is endemic is contained within the modern borders of Alaska. The exception is an area known as "Inland Tlingit"^[30] that extends up the Taku River and into northern British Columbia and the Yukon around Atlin Lake (Áa Tleen "Big Lake"^[31]) and Teslin Lake (Desleen < Tas Tleen "Big Thread"^[31]), as well as around Tagish Lake near the Chilkoot Trail (Jilḵoot).^[30] There is a small group of speakers (about 30) in Washington as well.^[32]

Use and revitalization efforts

Tlingit is classified as critically endangered by UNESCO.^[33] In 2007, Golla reported a maximum population of 500 speakers in Alaska, and an additional 185 in Canada.^[34] The First Peoples' Cultural Council reported 2 fluent speakers in British Columbia out of an ethnic population of 400.^[35]

Tlingit courses are available at the University of Alaska Southeast, taught in part by Lance Twitchell. In 2022, the university began offering these classes for free.^[36]^[37] In April 2014, Alaska HB 216 recognized Tlingit as an official language of Alaska, lending support to language revitalization.^[38]

Dialects

Tlingit is divided into roughly four major dialects,^[28] all of which are essentially mutually intelligible:^[10]

The Northern dialect is spoken in a vast area south from Yakutat (Yaakwdáat) and Lituya Bay (Litu.aa) to Angoon (Aangóon) and Sitka (Sheetʼká), also covering the area around Hoonah (Xunaa) and Juneau (Dzántikʼi Héeni).^[39]
- The Inland Tlingit dialect, a subdialect of Northern,^[40] is spoken in Canada around Atlin Lake and Teslin Lake.^[30]
The Transitional dialect, having features "in-between" those of the Northern and Southern dialects, was historically spoken in and around Kake (Ḵéex̱ʼ "Daylight"), and Wrangell (Ḵaachx̱ana.áakʼw "Ḵaachx̱an's Little Lake").^[41]
The Southern subdialects of Sanya (Saanyaa) and Heinya (Heinyaa) are spoken from Sumner Strait south to the Alaska-Canada border, excepting the southern end of Prince of Wales Island, which is the land of the Kaigani Haida (Kʼaaykʼaani).^[42]
Tongass Tlingit, the most divergent of the dialects,^[43] was once spoken south of Ketchikan to the Portland Canal,^[44] but recently died with its last speakers in the 1990s.^[27]

Most dialects of Tlingit can be classified into two-tone (Northern and Transitional) and three-tone (Southern) systems.^[45] Tongass Tlingit, however, has no tone, but rather a four-way register contrast between short, long, glottalized, and "fading" vowels.^[46] (In the last type, the onset of the vowel is articulated normally but the release is murmured, essentially a rapid opening of the glottis once articulation is begun, resulting in fading of volume and pitch.)^[47]

The tone values in two-tone dialects can be predicted in some cases from the three-tone values but not the reverse. Earlier, it was hypothesized that the three-tone dialects were older and that the two-tone dialects evolved from them.^{[citation needed]} However, Jeff Leer's discovery of the Tongass dialect in the late 1970s has shown that the Tongass vowel system is adequate to predict the tonal features all the other dialects,^[48] but that none of the tonal dialects could be used to predict vocalic feature distribution in Tongass Tlingit. Thus, Tongass Tlingit is the most conservative of the various dialects of Tlingit, preserving contrasts which have been lost in the other dialects.

The fading and glottalized vowels in Tongass Tlingit have also been compared with similar systems in the Coast Tsimshian dialect, which has led some to believe that the Tongass system was inherited from Coast Tsimshian.^[49] However, the Tongass system also shows remarkable similarity to the Eyak system, suggesting that Tongass retained features from Proto-Na-Dene which instead developed into tonal systems in most of the Athabaskan languages and the other dialects of Tlingit.^[50]

Phonology

Tlingit has a complex phonological system compared to Indo-European languages such as English or Spanish. It has an almost complete series of ejective consonants accompanying its stop, fricative, and affricate consonants. The only missing consonant in the Tlingit ejective series is [ʃʼ].^[51] The phonology is also typologically unusual because it has several laterals but no voiced [l] nor labials in most dialects, except for [m] and [p] in recent English loanwords.^[52]

Consonants

The consonants in the table are given in the IPA, with the popular orthography equivalents in brackets. Dialectal, obsolete, and marginal consonants are given in parentheses.

Tlingit Consonants^[52]^[53]
		Labial	Alveolar			Palato- alveolar	Velar		Uvular		Glottal
		Labial	plain	sibilant	lateral	Palato- alveolar	plain	labial	plain	labial	plain	labial
Plosive	unaspirated		t ⟨d⟩	ts ⟨dz⟩	tɬ ⟨dl⟩	tʃ ⟨j⟩	k ⟨g⟩	kʷ ⟨gw⟩	q ⟨g̱⟩	qʷ ⟨g̱w⟩	ʔ ⟨.⟩	(ʔʷ) ⟨.w⟩^[a]
	aspirated		tʰ ⟨t⟩	tsʰ ⟨ts⟩	tɬʰ ⟨tl⟩	tʃʰ ⟨ch⟩	kʰ ⟨k⟩	kʷʰ ⟨kw⟩	qʰ ⟨ḵ⟩	qʷʰ ⟨ḵw⟩
	ejective		tʼ ⟨tʼ⟩	tsʼ ⟨tsʼ⟩	tɬʼ ⟨tlʼ⟩	tʃʼ ⟨chʼ⟩	kʼ ⟨kʼ⟩	kʷʼ ⟨kʼw⟩	qʼ ⟨ḵʼ⟩	qʷʼ ⟨ḵʼw⟩
Fricative	voiceless			s ⟨s⟩	ɬ ⟨l⟩	ʃ ⟨sh⟩	x ⟨x⟩	xʷ ⟨xw⟩	χ ⟨x̱⟩	χʷ ⟨x̱w⟩	h ⟨h⟩	(hʷ) ⟨hw⟩^[a]
Fricative	ejective			sʼ ⟨sʼ⟩	ɬʼ ⟨lʼ⟩		xʼ ⟨xʼ⟩	xʷʼ ⟨xʼw⟩	χʼ ⟨x̱’⟩	χʷʼ ⟨x̱ʼw⟩
Sonorant		(m) ⟨m⟩^[b]	n ⟨n⟩		(l) ⟨ll⟩^[c]	j ⟨y⟩	(ɰ) ⟨ÿ⟩^[d]	w ⟨w⟩

^ ^a ^b Marginal;^[54] their realization is possibly an idiolectal phenomenon.^[55]
^ The consonant m is a variant of w found in the Interior dialect; amsikóo "(he) knew it" would be awsikóo in the Coastal dialects. It is thought that this consonant arose either from contact with Athabaskan languages like Tagish and Tutchone that have it, or that it is a vestige of a Pre-Tlingit phonemic m that merged with w in all other dialects.^[54]^[56]
^ The consonant ll is an allophone of n that is now mostly obsolete, but still occasionally heard among older speakers. In the Interior dialect, it is partially phonemic,^[56] appearing in some Athabaskan and English loanwords (e.g. Alláaski for Alaska; this is Anáaski in other dialects).^[57]
^ The consonant ÿ (/ɰ/) has very recently merged with y (/j/) or w (/w/) depending on the phonological environment, with w next to rounded vowels and labialized consonants, and y elsewhere.^[58] It is attested in audio recordings of speakers from the periphery of Tlingit territory,^[59] notably among Tongass speakers.^[50]

Phonetic analysis shows that all Tlingit word final non-ejective stops are unaspirated.^[60] This analysis also has phonological basis, as words with final non-ejective stops that are suffixed with vowels maintain a non-aspirated pronunciation. This is reflected by the orthography, which uses the graphemes for unaspirated sounds, ⟨d g g̱⟩, when a vowel is suffixed. For example, x̱aat [χaːt] ("root") becomes ax̱ x̱aadí [aχ χaːtí] ("my root").^[61]

Phonetic analysis also shows that the ejective fricatives in Tlingit are in fact true ejectives, with complete closure of the glottis before frication begins and the larynx raising in the same manner as with ejective stops. This contrasts with common analyses in some other languages with ejective fricatives, which considers them a sequence of fricative and glottal stop.^[62]

Vowels

Tlingit has eight phonemic vowels, four of these distinguished formally by length. However, shorter vowels are typically also pronounced more centralized,^[63]^[64] or less tense.^[65]

Tlingit Vowels^[63]
	Tense/Long			Lax/Short
	front	central	back	front	central	back
close	iː ⟨ee⟩		uː ⟨oo⟩	ɪ ⟨i⟩		ʊ ⟨u⟩
mid	eː ⟨ei⟩			ɛ ⟨e⟩		ʌ ⟨a⟩
open			aː ⟨aa⟩^[a]

^ Maddieson, Smith and Bessell describe this as "distinctly a back vowel", so it is properly represented as [ɑ].^[66]

Word onset is always consonantal in Tlingit. Thus, in order to avoid a word starting with a vowel, an initial vowel is always preceded by either [ʔ] or [j].^[67]^[68] The former is most common,^[67] while the latter occurs in conjunction with the prefix i-.^[68] For example:

[qʰuːwʌtʼáː]
ḵoowat'áa

ḵu-

INDH.OBJ-

ÿu-

PERF-

ÿa-

(ø, -D, +I)-

t'áa

hot

"the weather is hot"

But when the perfective prefix ÿu- is word-initial, the glottal stop appears to ensure that the word begins with a consonant.

[ʔʊwʌtʼáː]
uwat'áa

∅-

3.NEU.OBJ-

ÿu-

PERF-

ÿa-

(ø, -D, +I)-

t'áa

hot

"it is hot"

In contrast, when prefixed with i-, the same verbal root (tʼaa, "hot") becomes yatʼaa [jatʼaː] rather than *itʼaa [ʔitʼaː].^[68]

Tone

Tone is contrastive in all dialects of Tlingit but Tongass.^[45] In the Northern and Transitional dialects, there are high and low tones, and in the Southern dialect there is an additional falling tone.^[69] Rather than tone, Tongass Tlingit has a register system of vowel phonation and glottalization^[47] that corresponds to the tone systems of other dialects. An illustration of some of these correspondences can be seen below.^[70]

Tongass register			Southern tone			Northern tone			Example translation^[45]
notation	description	example	notation	description	example	notation	description	example	Example translation^[45]
V	short	sha	V́	high tone	shá	V́	high tone	shá	"head"
VV	long	shaa	V́V	long high tone	sháa	V́V	long high tone	sháa	"woman"
VV'	long glottalized	ḵaa'	V̂V	long falling tone	ḵâa	V́V	long high tone	ḵáa	"man"
VV`	long fading	aa`n	V̀V	long low tone	àan	V̀V	long low tone	aan	"land"

Writing system

The very first instance of written Tlingit is from the La Pérouse expedition in 1786, where for example, tleixʼ ("one") was transcribed as "keirrk".^[71] A more formal orthography based on the Cyrillic alphabet was created by the Russians during their colonization of Alaska. However, after Alaska was acquired by the United States, native language literacy was discouraged,^[11] and until the latter half of the 20th century, Tlingit was only written by linguists.^[72]

The most widespread orthography used today is based off of the transcription systems of some of these linguists, particularly Constance Naish and Gillian Story.^[73] Like other popular writing systems, it uses the letters for voiced obstruents to represent unaspirated sounds; e.g., ⟨d⟩ for /t/. Uvular sounds are distinguished from velars by an underline; that is, ⟨k ḵ⟩ for /kʰ qʰ/. Typing an underline was straightforward on the typewriters of the 20th century, but it is no longer so on modern computers.^[74] Thus, an alternative "email" orthography was developed in the 1990s^[72] that replaces the underline with an appended ⟨h⟩; so, ⟨ḵ⟩ becomes ⟨kh⟩, and so on.^[74]

The Inland Tlingit orthography does not use vowel digraphs. Instead, short high vowels are marked with an acute accent, long high vowels are marked with a circumflex, and long low vowels are marked with a grave accent. Short low vowels are unmarked. So, Coastal Tlingit ⟨áa⟩ and ⟨aa⟩ are Inland ⟨â⟩ and ⟨à⟩ respectively. Coastal ⟨éi⟩ and ⟨ei⟩ are Inland ⟨ê⟩ and ⟨è⟩; Coastal ⟨ée⟩ and ⟨ee⟩ are Inland ⟨î⟩ and ⟨ì⟩; and Coastal ⟨óo⟩ and ⟨oo⟩ are Inland ⟨û⟩ and ⟨ù⟩.^[75]

Grammar

Tlingit is highly synthetic and agglutinating, although it has some traits of a fusional language, and is even polysynthetic to some extent. The verb, as with all the Na-Dene languages, is characteristically incorporating. Nouns are in comparison relatively simple, with many being derived from verbs.

Nouns

Possession and alienability

Nouns in Tlingit can be divided into two open classes, possessable and unpossessable. This division is based on whether a particular noun may have a possessed relationship with another noun, both syntactically and semantically. In Tlingit the names for people and places are unpossessable, while other nouns may be either optionally or obligatorily possessed (called alienable and inalienable, respectively). Most nouns in Tlingit are alienable, i.e., they may be used alone or may be possessed by another noun. In contrast, inalienable nouns cannot appear without a possessor. Inalienable nouns commonly refer to kinship terms and body parts.

A notable feature of inalienable nouns is that they are not normally marked for possession; that is, they do not take the possessed -ÿi suffix, as the possessive relationship is implicit in the meaning of the noun. However, if the possessed suffix is used on an inalienable noun, the meaning changes from being part of a body to a body part that is somehow separated from the rest of the body. Thus xóots shá means "a bear's head", but xóots shayí means "a bear's head (detached from its body)".

Plural

A plural suffix -xʼ exists which may be attached to most nouns, however it is not usually used. A few nouns are treated as singular/plural pairs, e.g. khaa/khaaxʼw "person"/"people", du yádi/du yátxʼi "his child"/"his children".

Pronominals

Tlingit has a complex system of pronominals, or pronouns, which vary depending on their relationship to syntactic categories including the verb,^[76] in addition to relative agency in the third-person pronouns.^[77] The subject pronominals are incorporated into the verb in its subject slot.^[76] They are divided into three classes: the verbal object, nominal object, and postpositional object. There are also independent pronominals which are completely separate from the verb; they can be used in dependent clauses or in subject or object position.

The pronominals can be visualized in the following table.^[76]^[78]

		Subject	Object			Independent
		Subject	VO	NO	PO	Independent
1	SINGULAR	x̱a-	x̱at, ax̱	ax̱	x̱a-	x̱át
1	PLURAL	too-	haa	haa		uháan
2	SINGULAR	ee-	i-	i		wa.é
2	PLURAL	yi-	yee-	yee		yeewáan^[a]
3	NEUTRAL	Ø-	a-, Ø-	du	u-	hú
	RECESSIVE		a-, Ø-	a	a-
	SALIENT		ash	ash
REFLEXIVE			sh-, Ø-	chush
RECIPROCAL			woosh	woosh
Indefinite	HUMAN	du-	ḵu-, ḵaa-	ḵaa	ḵu-
Indefinite	NON-HUMAN		at-	at
PARTITIVE			aa

^ This pronoun has several variable forms depending on dialect, including yeeháan, eewáan, and eeyáan.^[79]

The first and second person pronominals both have a distinction between singular and plural.^[78] The third person pronominals, which in object form are distinguished as neutral, recessive, and salient, communicate agency and salience.^[77] The third person may be pluralized by the addition of the word has before the verb,^[80] although the plural is often communicated in other ways.^[81] The indefinite pronominals are a type of fourth person and distinguish between human and non-human referents.^[78]

The subject pronominals are all incorporated into the verb. Thus, when the subject is represented as a pronominal, the syntactic subject position of the sentence is empty. Object pronominals are divided into three classes: the verbal (VO), nominal (NO), and postpositional (PO).^{[citation needed]} The verbal object pronominals function similarly to the subject pronominals in that they are incorporated into the verb and leave the syntactic object position empty when used. The nominal object pronominals are similar to the possessive pronouns of English. Postpositional object pronominals act as the object of a postposition.

Possessed nouns take the -i suffix and are preceded by the appropriate nominal object pronominal. For example:

ax̱ dóoshi = my cat
haa héeni = our river
du lʼee xʼwáni = his/her socks

Third person pronominals

There is only one class of third person subject in Tlingit,^[82] but there are three classes of third person object (neutral, recessive, and salient). This system of object pronominals exist in parallel to similar systems (called "anaphora") in many Athabaskan languages, including in Navajo.^[77] All these anaphora have roots in Proto Na-Dene,^[83] although Tlingit has a particularly complex system.^[77]

In the system, a referent can be either an agent or a non-agent.^[77] Agents can only be humans, supernatural beings, natural forces, or personified animals; by contrast, a non-agent is anything else, including other animals, inanimate objects, plants, places, and ideas. Non-agents may only be referred to using the recessive pronominals, while the pronominal for an agent is determined by the presence and situation of saliency.^[84]

Saliency is only considered when the following criteria are met:^[84]

the subject is also third-person
both subject and object are agents
the subject and object are opposed in the discourse (i.e., they do not refer to the same thing).

If saliency is not considered, then the neutral pronominal is used for the agent object. If it is considered, then relative agency is used to determine which pronominal to use for the object. If the object has less agency than the subject, then the recessive pronominal is used; if it has more agency, then the salient pronominal is used.^[85]

Consider a situation where the protagonist of a story (who has the most agency) is the object of a sentence, while someone else (with less agency) is the subject. Then a translation of "He found her" would be:^[86]

Ash wootʼee

ash

3.SAL.OBJ

ø-

3.SUB-

wu-

PFV-

i-

STV-

tʼi

find

"He found her"

In the opposite situation, where the subject has more agency than the object, a translation of the same sentence would be:^[86]

Aawatʼee

a-

3.REC.OBJ

ø-

3.SUB

wu-

PFV-

i-

STV-

tʼi

find

"He found her"

Conversely, if a human speaker were to sit on a chair (which is inanimate), one could say:^[87]

A kát x̱wanuk

a

3.REC.OBJ-

ká-

surface-

t

to

wu-

PFV-

x̱a-

1S.SUB-

ÿa-

CL-

nuk

sit

"I sat down on it"

But if that same speaker sat on another person, one would say:^[87]

Du kát x̱wanuk

du

3.NEU.OBJ-

ká-

surface-

t

to

wu-

PFV-

x̱a-

1S.SUB-

ÿa-

CL-

nuk

sit

"I sat down on him/her"

Postpositions

Nominal cases in Tlingit are designated by postpositions, however they usually behave morphologically like suffixes.

Case	Form	Use	Example
Ergative	-ch	Marks the agent of a transitive verb with a definite object. The meaning is roughly "by means of" and is consistent with other split ergative languages. When discussing the two arguments of the verb in an ergative sentence, the marked agent is called the "ergative argument" and the definite object is called the "absolutive argument". Note that Tlingit lacks an absolutive case, instead the absolutive argument is not marked.	Tách x̱at uwajaḵ tá-ch sleep-ERG x̱at 1SG.OBJ u-ÿa-jaḵ PFV-STV-kill tá-ch x̱at u-ÿa-jaḵ sleep-ERG 1SG.OBJ PFV-STV-kill "I fell asleep." (lit. "Sleep has killed me")
Punctual	-t	When used with a positional imperfective it designates physical position, roughly meaning "(resting) at". When used in a telic derivative it means "(coming) to", "(arriving) at"; while in an atelic na-aspect derivative it means "(moving) about".	Nadáakw kát x̱a.áa naadáakw table ká-t surface-PUNCT x̱a-áa 1SG.SUBJ-sit naadáakw ká-t x̱a-áa table surface-PUNCT 1SG.SUBJ-sit "I am seated on top of the table."
Pertingent	-x̱	Can mean an extended physical location or extended contact with an object, e.g. "(usually or always) at". In another sense it indicates repetitive physical arrival, as in "repeatedly arriving at", "always coming to". In a third sense it indicates physical status, i.e. "in the form of".	Lingítx̱ haa sateeyí (lingít) Lingít-x̱ Tlingit-PERT haa 1PL.OBJ sa-tee-ÿi APL-be-REL (lingít) (person/people) Lingít-x̱ haa sa-tee-ÿi (lingít) Tlingit-PERT 1PL.OBJ APL-be-REL (person/people) "We who are Tlingit"
Locative	-xʼ	May indicate physical location, such as "at a place", "by a place", "in a structure". It can be extended by analogy to temporal location, such as "at a time", "by a time".	Aangóonxʼ yéi x̱at yatee Aangóon-xʼ Angoon-LOC yéi thus x̱at 1SG.OBJ ÿatee be Aangóon-xʼ yéi x̱at ÿatee Angoon-LOC thus 1SG.OBJ be "I am/live in Angoon." Sándixʼ yéi ḵwagút Sándi-xʼ Sunday-LOC yéi thus [ga-u-g̱a]-x̱a-ÿa-gút [ASCN-IRR-DESCN]-1SG.SUBJ-STV-come Sándi-xʼ yéi [ga-u-g̱a]-x̱a-ÿa-gút Sunday-LOC thus [ASCN-IRR-DESCN]-1SG.SUBJ-STV-come "I will come on/by Sunday."
Adessive	-g̱aa	Indicates physical adjacency to place or object, such as "around", "by". By extension of this concept it may indicate physical succession, "(go) after something" or "(follow) something", as well as the temporal associations of "(waiting) for something" and "about (a time)", "around (a time)".
Ablative	-dax̱	Marks the physical origin of an action, translated as "from (a place)" or "out of (a place)". By temporal extension it means "since (a time)" or "from (a time)".
Prolative	-náx̱	Marks a course of physical translation by some action, translated as "along (a way)" or "via (a path)". Temporal extension indicates the translation of an action along a duration of time, or the inclusion of a period of time, thus "during (some period)", "including (some time)".	Lingít x̱ʼéinax̱ waa sá duwasáakw? Lingít Tlingit x̱ʼéi-nax̱ mouth-PROL waa how sá Q ∅-du-wa-sáa-kw ∅.OBJ-INDH.SUBJ-PFV-name-REP Lingít x̱ʼéi-nax̱ waa sá ∅-du-wa-sáa-kw Tlingit mouth-PROL how Q ∅.OBJ-INDH.SUBJ-PFV-name-REP "How is (it) called in Tlingit?" (lit. "How is it named by the Tlingit mouth?")
Allative	-dei	Marks a physical or temporal destination, translated as "to, toward" and "until", respectively. It may also describe an analogical motion, "in the manner of".	sgóondei yaa nx̱waagút sgóon-dei school-ALL yaa along na-x̱a-u-ÿa-gút PROG-1SG.OBJ-PFV-STV-go sgóon-dei yaa na-x̱a-u-ÿa-gút school-ALL along PROG-1SG.OBJ-PFV-STV-go "I went towards school"
Comitative-instrumental	-tin	May describe either the instrumental "with (a utensil)", "by means of (something)", or the comitative "with (something, someone)", "along with (something, someone)".
Locative-predicative	-u	Functions as a postposition plus a nonverbal predicate.

Other postpositions function as separate words, and include:

g̱óot — "without"
náḵ — "away from"
yís — "for"
yáx̱ — "like, as much as, according to"
yánáx̱ — "more than"
ḵín — "less than"

Directionals

In Tlingit, directionals are a semantic category which indicate direction relative to some stated position. The stated position can be some element of the natural environment, a structure, or a person or group of people. Syntactically, directionals are a subcategory of nouns because, like nouns, they can be arguments of verbs and objects of postpositions.^[88] Some examples of directionals can be seen below.

	Noun	N-dei	N-naa	Adverb (+15)
up above	(di-)kée	(di-)kín-dei	(di-)kee-naa	kei, kéi
down below	(di-)yée	(di-)yín-dei	(di-)yee-naa	yei, yéi, yaa
upstream	naakée	nán-dei	naa-nyaa ~ naa-naa	–
downstream	ix-kée, éex	íx-dei	ixi-naa	–
from landshore, interior	dáaḵ	dáḵ-dei	daḵi-naa	daaḵ
from seashore, out to sea	dei-kí	dák-dei	daki-naa ~ diki-naa	daak
inside	neil	neil-dei	—	neil
outside	gáan	gán-dei	—	—

Verbs

Verb morphology is highly intricate, with a single verb phrase (called the "verb complex") capable of expressing a full sentence.^[89] This verb phrase can communicate, among other things, aspect, mood, tense, transitivity, subject(s) and object(s), and qualities of the object(s).^[90]

The nucleus of the verb is the root, which indicates what exactly is being done (e.g. eating, playing, walking, etc.).^[91] A verb root cannot appear on its own, so it always also has stem variation,^[92] which are differences in vowel length and tone that are dictated by aspect and conjugation.^[93] For example, the root *x̱a ("eat") is ungrammatical by itself. Instead, the imperative form of the verb also includes a high tone on the vowel: X̱á! ("Eat (it)!").^[94]

Tlingit verbs are commonly analyzed using template morphology, meaning that affixes are each assigned a numbered position in the verb complex relative to the root, and classes of affixes are organized into "domains" that are based on their phonological behavior. Crippen has criticized verb templates in analyses of Tlingit grammar, as they fail to explain interdependencies between morphemes and present a seemingly arbitrary order of affixes,^[95] but they are still the most common way for analyzing verbs in all Na-Dene languages.^[96] An example of a verb template for Tlingit is given below.^[97]


Domain	Position	Description	Example morpheme(s)
Preverb	+17H-A	preverbs	g̱unayéi, "beginning"
	+16	reciprocal and distributive	woosh, "each other"
	+15	plural	has
Disjunct	+14	objects	yee- "you guys"
	+13	areal	ḵu-
	+12	outer incorporates	ḵee-, "day"
	+11	inner incorporates	x̱ʼe-, "mouth"
Conjunct	+10	y-qualifiers	ÿ-, ~ "face"
	+9	k-qualifiers	k-, ~ "horizontal surface"
	+8	self-benefactive	g-
	+7	outer conjugation	g-
	+6	irrealis	u-, w-
	+5	conjugation and aspect	ø, n-, g̱-, wu-, u-
	+4	modality	g̱-
	+3	inner distributive	dag̱-
	+2	subjects	x̱- "I"
Classifier	+1	classifier	ÿa-
Stem	0	ROOT
	-1	stem variation	Vː, Vʰ, Vˀ, -ÿ, -n
	-2	repetitives and derivation	-kw, repetitive
	-3	modality suffixes	-ní
	-4	tense	ín, past tense
	-5	clause type	-í, subordinate clause
	-6	auxiliaries	nooch, "always"

Another criticism of the template is that it implies that all positions can be filled; in reality, this is not true, and even the longest verb phrases do not have every affix slot filled.^[95]

Syntax

Tlingit is by default an SOV language,^[98] but nevertheless word order is quite flexible.^[99] The SOV order is most apparent when object and (non-pronominal) agent phrases both exist in the sentence. However, there is a tendency to restrict the arguments of the verb phrase to a single non-pronominal noun phrase, with any other arguments being integrated into the verb. This can cause the appearance of an OSV word order, but it has been shown that this is not a correct analysis of Tlingit syntax.^[98]

Particles

Particles function as neither noun nor verb. They are restricted to positions relative to phrases in the sentence.

Focus particles

The focus particles follow the left periphery of a sentence. Many of them may be suffixed with a demonstrative (-yá, -hé, -wé, -yú), and they may also be combined with the interrogative (-gé). For example:

á — focus
ágé — interrogative (< á + gé)
ásgé — second hand information, "I hear...", "they say..." (< ásé + gé)
ḵu.aa — contrastive, "however"
óosh — hypothetical, "as if", "even if", "if only"

The focus particle sá is obligatory in forming wh-question phrases.

Phrasal particles

Phrasal particles may be either pre-phrasal or post-phrasal, meaning they are restricted to a position either before or after the phrase they modify, respectively. For example:

tsú — "also"
déi — "now", "this time"
chʼas — "only", "just"
tlax̱ — "very"

Mobile particles

These particles may occur before or after any phrase in a clause. For example:

tlei — "just," "simply," "just then"
déi — "already," "by now"
tsu — "again", "still", "some more"

Note that both the sentence káaxwei tsu eetéenaxh xhat yatee "I need more coffee" and the sentence káaxwei tsú eetéenaxh xhat yatee "I also need coffee" are acceptable, with tsu and tsú differentiated only on the basis of tone.

Sentence-initial particles

These particles may only occur at the front of a sentence. For example:

tléik, l — negative, "not"
gwál — dubitative, "perhaps"
gu.aal — optative, "hopefully"
ḵaju, x̱aju — contrary, "actually", "in fact"
ḵashde — "I thought..."

Lexicon

Historically, Tlingit has borrowed from Russian, Chinook Jargon, and English. It seems likely that Tlingit borrowed from neighboring languages such as Haida and Tsimshian before the start of the historical record, but to what extent is unknown.