Hän language

The Hän language (also known as Dawson, Han-Kutchin, Moosehide; ISO 639-3 haa) is a Northern Athabaskan language spoken by the Hän Hwëch'in (translated to people who live along the river, sometimes anglicized as Hankutchin). Hän is spoken primarily in two places, each with their own dialect: the village of Eagle, Alaska in the United States and the town of Dawson City, Yukon Territory in Canada, though there are also Hän speakers in the nearby city of Fairbanks, Alaska.[4][5]

Hän is in the Northern Athabaskan subgrouping of the Athabaskan-Eyak-Tlingit language family. It is most closely related to Gwich'in and Upper Tanana.[5]

Phonology

Consonants

The consonants of Hän in the standard orthography are listed below (with IPA notation in brackets):[5]

Labial Inter-
dental 		Alveolar Post-
alveolar 		Retroflex Velar Glottal
central lateral
Nasal [n̥] nh
[m] m [n] n
Stop [pʰ] (p) [tʰ] t [kʰ] k
[p] b [t] d [k] g [ʔ] ʼ
[tʼ] t’ [kʼ] k’
[ᵐb] mb [ⁿd] nd
Affricate [tθʰ] tth [tsʰ] ts [tɬʰ] tl [tʃʰ] ch [ʈʂʰ] tr
[tθ] ddh [ts] dz [tɬ] dl [tʃ] j [ʈʂ] dr
[tθʼ] tth’ [tsʼ] ts’ [tɬʼ] tl’ [tʃʼ] ch’ [ʈʂʼ] tr’
[ⁿdʒ] nj
Fricative [θ] th [s] s [ɬ] ł [ʃ] sh [ʂ] sr [x] kh [h] h
[ð] dh [z] z [ɮ] l [ʒ] zh [ʐ] zr [ɣ] gh
Approximant [j̊] yh [ɻ̥] rh [w̥] wh
[l] l [j] y [ɻ] r [w] 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][citation needed]
  • falling tone is marked with a caron (or háček), e.g., [ǎ][citation needed]
  • high tone is never marked, e.g., [a]

Revitalization

There are about a dozen people, all elderly, who speak Han as their native language,[6] though there is a growing second-language speaker community. The Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in (formerly known as the Dawson First Nation) in the Yukon Territory support the revitalization of Hän, and there are current efforts to revive the language locally. Since 1991, the Robert Service School in Dawson City has hosted the Hän Language program, and the Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in supports adult language classes and bi-annual cultural gatherings.[5]

Further reading

  • Manker, Jonathan, and Tsuu T’ina Nation (2013). The Syntax of Sluicing in Hän. Dene Languages Conference, Calgary Alberta.
  • Manker, Jonathan (2014). Tone Specification and the Tone-Bearing Unit (TBU) in Hän Athabascan. WSLCA 19 St. John's, Newfoundland.

Notes

  1. ^ Hän at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
  2. ^ https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2014/04/21/305688602/alaska-oks-bill-making-native-languages-official
  3. ^ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Han". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  4. ^ "Hän language, alphabet and pronunciation". www.omniglot.com. Retrieved 2017-08-22.
  5. ^ a b c d "Yukon Native Language Centre". ynlc.ca. Retrieved 2018-01-13.
  6. ^ "Hän". Ethnologue: Languages of the World.

External links

References