Chilcotin language Totally Explained

Everything about Chilcotin Language totally explained

Chilcotin (also Tsilhqot’in, Tzilkotin) is a Northern Athabaskan language spoken in British Columbia by the Tsilhqot’in people.
The name Chilcotin is derived from the Chilcotin name for themselves: Tŝilhqot’in, literally "people of the red ochre river".

Sounds

Consonants

Chilcotin has 47 consonants:
central

Bilabial	Dental		Alveolar	Palatal	Velar		Uvular		Glottal
Bilabial	lateral	plain	Alveolar	Palatal	labial	plain	labial		Glottal
Nasal		m	n̪
Stop	unaspirated	p	t̪				k	kʷ	q	qʷ
	aspirated	pʰ	t̪ʰ				kʰ	kʷʰ	qʰ	qʷʰ
	ejective		t̪’				k’	k’ʷ	q’	q’ʷ	ʔ
Affricate	unaspirated		ts̪	tɬ	tsˤ̱	tʃ
	aspirated		ts̪ʰ	tɬʰ	ts̱ˤʰ	tʃʰ
	ejective		ts̪’	tɬ’	ts̱ˤ’	tʃ’
Continuant	voiceless		s̪	ɬ	s̱ˤ	ç		xʷ	χ	χʷ	h
Continuant	voiced		z̪	l	ẕˤ	j		w	ʁ	ʁʷ

Like many Athabaskan languages, Chilcotin doesn't have a contrast between fricatives and approximants.
The alveolar series is pharyngealized.
Dentals and alveolars:
- Both Krauss (1975) and Cook (1993) describe the dental and alveolar as being essentially identical in articulation—postdental—with the only differentiating factor being their different behaviours in the vowel flattening processes (described below).
- Gafos (1999, personal communication with Cook) describes the dental series as apico-laminal denti-alveolar and the alveolar series as lamino-postalveolar.

Vowels

Chilcotin has 6 vowels:
High

Front				Back
i	ɪ			u	ʊ
Low			æ	ɛ

Chilcotin has both tense and lax vowel phonemes. Additionally, tense vowels may become lax due a vowel laxing process (see below). Every given Chilcotin vowel will have a number of different phonetic realizations due to complex phonological processes (for example nasalization, laxing, flattening). For instance, the vowel /i/ can be variously pronounced as [i,ĩ, ɪ, e, ᵊi, ᵊĩ, ᵊɪ].

Tone

Chilcotin is a tonal language with two tones:

high tone

low tone

Phonological processes

Chilcotin has a number of interesting phonological processes, namely vowel flattening and consonant harmony. Consonant harmony (for example sibilant harmony) is rather common in the Athabaskan language family. Vowel flattening, though unique to Chilcotin, is similar to phonological processes in other unrelated Interior Salishan languages spoken in the same area, such as Shuswap, St'át'imcets, and Thompson River Salish (and thus was probably borrowed into Chilcotin). This type of harmony is an areal feature common in this region of North America. The Chilcotin processes, however, are much more complicated.

Vowel nasalization and laxing

Vowel nasalization is a phonological process where the phoneme /n/ is realized as nasalization on the preceding vowel. This process occurs when the vowel + /n/ sequence is followed by a (tautosyllabic) continuant consonant (e.ɡ. /ɬ, sˤ, zˤ, ç, j, χ/).

/pinɬ/

→

[pĩɬ]

'trap'

Vowel laxing is a process where tense vowels (for example /i, u, æ/) become lax when followed by a syllable-final /h/ (for example the tense and lax distinction is neutralized).

		/ʔɛstɬ’uh/	→	[ʔɛstɬ’ʊh]	'I'm knitting'		(u → ʊ)
		/sɛjæh/	→	[sɛjɛh]	'my throat'		(æ → ɛ)

Vowel flattening

Chilcotin has a type of Retracted Tongue Root harmony (or post-velar harmony) called Vowel Flattening. Generally, "flat" consonants lower vowels in both directions, for example the assimilation is both progressive and regressive.
Chilcotin consonants can be grouped into three categories: Neutral, Sharp, and Flat. Flat

p, pʰ, m t, tʰ, t’, n tɬ, tɬʰ, tɬ’, ɬ, l tʃ, tʃʰ, tʃ’, ç, j ʔ, h	ts, tsʰ, ts’, s, z k, kʰ, k’ kʷ, kʷʰ, k’ʷ, xʷ, w	sˤ-series:	tsˤ, tsʰˤ, ts’ˤ, sˤ, zˤ
	ts, tsʰ, ts’, s, z k, kʰ, k’ kʷ, kʷʰ, k’ʷ, xʷ, w	q-series:	q, qʰ, q’, χ, ʁ qʷ, qʷʰ, q’ʷ, χʷ, ʁʷ

Flat consonants trigger vowel flattening.

Sharp consonants block vowel flattening.

Neutral consonants don't affect vowel flattening in any way. The flat consonants can be further divided into two types:

a sˤ-series (for example /tsˤ/, /tsʰˤ/, /ts’ˤ/, etc.), and

a q-series (for example /q/, /qʷ/, /qʰ/, etc.). The sˤ-series is stronger than the q-series in that the sˤ-series affects vowels for a greater distance across the word.
The table below shows both unaffected vowels and flattened vowels.

		/sˤit/	→	[sˤᵊit]	'kinɡfisher'		(sˤ flattens i → ᵊi)
		/nisˤtsˤun/	→	[nesˤtsˤon]	'owl'		(sˤ flattens i → e)

Below the progressive and regressive flattening processes are described below in separate sections.

Progressive flattening

In the progressive (left-to-right) flattening, the q-series consonants affect only the immediately following vowel:

		/ʁitʰi/	→	[ʁᵊitʰi]	'I slept'		(ʁ flattens i → ᵊi)
		/qʰænɪç/	→	[qʰanɪç]	'spoon'		(qʰ flattens æ → a)

Like the q-series, the stronger sˤ-series consonants affects the immediately following vowel. However, this series additionally affects the vowel in the following syllable, if the first flattened vowel is a lax vowel. If the first flattened is tense, then the vowel of the following syllable isn't flattened.

		/sˤɛɬ.tʰin/	→	[sˤəɬ.tʰᵊin]	'he's comatose'		(sˤ flattens both ɛ → ə, i → ᵊi )
		/sˤi.tʰin/	→	[sˤᵊi.tʰin]	'I'm sleeping'		(sˤ flattens first i → ᵊi, but not second i: *sˤᵊitʰᵊin)

As can be seen above, the neutral consonants are "transparent" in the flattening process. In the first word /sˤɛɬ.tʰin/ 'he's comatose', /sˤ/ flattens the /ɛ/ of the first syllable to [ə] and the /i/ of the second syllable to [ᵊi]. In the word /sˤi.tʰin/ 'I'm sleeping', /sˤ/ flattens /i/ to [ᵊi]. But since the vowel of the first syllable is /i/ which is a tense vowel, the /sˤ/ can't flatten the /i/ of the second syllable.
The sharp consonants, however, block the progressive flattening caused by the sˤ-series:

		/tizˤ.k’ɛn/	→	[tezˤ.k’ɛn]	'it's burning'		(flattening of ɛ is blocked by k’: *tezˤk’ən)
		/sˤɛ.kɛn/	→	[sˤə.kɛn]	'it's dry'		(flattening of ɛ is blocked by k: *sˤəkən)

Regressive flattening

In regressive (right-to-left) harmony, the q-series flattens the preceding vowel (just like it does in the progressive harmony mentioned above).

		/ʔælæχ/	→	[ʔælaχ]	'I made it'		(χ flattens æ → a)
		/junɛqʰæt/	→	[junəqʰat]	'he's slappinɡ him'		(qʰ flattens ɛ → ə)

The regressive (right-to-left) harmony of the sˤ-series, however, is much stronger than in the progressive harmony. Here these consonants flatten all preceding vowels in a word:

/kunizˤ/	→	[konezˤ]	'it is lonɡ'	(zˤ flattens all vowels, both i → e, u → o)
/kʷɛtɛkuljúzˤ/	→	[kʷətəkoljózˤ]	'he is rich'	(zˤ flattens all vowels)
/nækʷɛnitsˤɛ́sˤ/	→	[nakʷənetsˤə́sˤ]	'fire's gone out'	(tsˤ, sˤ flatten all vowels)

Both progressive and regressive flattening processes occur in Chilcotin words:

		/niqʰin/	→	[neqʰᵊin]	'we paddled'
		/ʔɛqʰɛn/	→	[ʔəqʰən]	'my husband'

Consonant harmony

GrammarFurther Information

Get more info on 'Chilcotin Language'.

External Link Exchanges

Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:

<a href="http://chilcotin_language.totallyexplained.com">Chilcotin language Totally Explained</a>

Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned.