Slavey ( ;Laurie Bauer, 2007, The Linguistics Student's Handbook, Edinburgh also Slave, Slavé) is a group of Athabaskan languages and a dialect continuum spoken amongst the Dene peoples of Canada in the Northwest Territories – or central Denendeh – where it also has official status.Northwest Territories Official Languages Act, 1988 (as amended 1988, 1991-1992, 2003) The languages are primarily written using a modified Latin script, with some using Canadian Aboriginal syllabics. In their own languages, these languages are referred to as: Sahtúgot’įné Yatı̨́ (spoken by the Sahtu Dene), K’ashógot’įne Goxedǝ́ (the Hare Dene dialect) and Shíhgot’įne Yatı̨́ (the Mountain dialect) in the North, and Dené Dháh (primarily by the Dene Tha' in Alberta), Dene Yatıé or Dene Zhatıé in the South.
North Slavey and South Slavey North Slavey is spoken by the Sahtu (North Slavey) people in the Mackenzie District along the middle Mackenzie River from Tulita (Fort Norman) north, around Great Bear Lake, and in the Mackenzie Mountains of the Canadian territory of Northwest Territories. The dialect has around 800 speakers. Northern Slavey is an amalgamation of three separate dialects: K’ashógot’įne () Goxedǝ́: Hare, spoken by the - "Rabbitskin People" or - "Great Hare People", referring to their dependence on the varying hare for food and clothing, also called or Sahtúgot’įné () Yatı̨́: Bear Lake, spoken by the or - "Bear Lake People", also known as Shíhgot’įne () Yatı̨́: Mountain, spoken by the or - "Mountain People" or Mountain Indians, also called or - "People of the west", so called because they lived in the mountains west of the other Slavey groups, between the Mackenzie Mountains and the Mackenzie River, from the Redstone River to the Mountain River
South Slavey ( or ) is spoken by the Slavey people, who were also known as ("people dwelling in the shelter"), in the region of Great Slave Lake, upper Mackenzie River ( - "Big River") and its drainage, in the District of Mackenzie, northwest Alberta, and northeast British Columbia.
Some communities are bilingual, with the children learning Slavey at home and English when they enter school. Still other communities are monolingual in Slavey The dialect has around 1,000 speakers.
Alternative names: Slavi, Slave, Dené, Mackenzian
The division of Slavey dialects is based largely on the way each one pronounces the old Proto-Athapaskan sounds *dz *ts *ts’ *s and *z.
Status North and South Slavey are recognized as official languages of the Northwest Territories; they may be used in court and in debates and proceedings of the Northwest Territories legislature. However, unlike English and French, the government only publishes laws and documents in North and South Slavey if the legislature requests it, and these documents are not authoritative.Nitah, S. (2002). One land - many voices: report of the NWT Special Committee on the Review of the Official Languages Act. Canadian Parliamentary Review 25(3), 4-8.
In 2015, a Slavey woman named Andrea Heron challenged the territorial government over its refusal to permit the ʔ character, representing the Slavey glottal stop, in her daughter's name, Sakaeʔah, despite Slavey languages being official in the NWT. The territory argued that territorial and federal identity documents were unable to accommodate the character. Heron had registered the name with a hyphen instead of the ʔ when her daughter was born, but when Sakaeʔah was 6, Ms. Heron joined a challenge by a Chipewyan woman named Shene Catholique-Valpy regarding the same character in her own daughter's name, Sahaiʔa.
Also in 2015, the University of Victoria launched a language revitalization program in the NWT, pairing learners of indigenous languages including Slavey with fluent speakers. The program requires 100 hours of conversation with the mentor with no English allowed, as well as sessions with instructors in Fort Providence.
Phonology Consonants Labial Alveolar Post-alveolar Dorsal Glottal plain sibilant lateral Plosive/Affricate plain aspirated ejective Fricative voiceless voiced Nasal Approximant
The consonant inventories in the dialects of Slavey differ considerably. The table above lists the 30 consonants common to most or all varieties. Hare lacks aspirated affricates (on red background), which have lenited into fricatives, whereas Mountain lacks (on blue). In addition, for some speakers of Hare, an alveolar flap has developed into a separate phoneme. Prenasalized stops may appear in Slavey proper.
The most pronounced difference is however the realization of a series of consonants that vary greatly in their place of articulation:Krauss, Michael E. & Golla, Victor K. (1981) Northern Athapaskan Languages. Handbook of North American Indians, p. 79. Slavey proper Mountain Bearlake Hare Plain stop/affricate , Aspirated Ejective Voiceless fricative Voiced fricative / semivowel
In Slavey proper, these are dental affricates and fricatives; comparative Athabaskan work reveals this to be the oldest sound value. Mountain has labials, with the voiceless stop coinciding with pre-existing . Bearlake has labialized velars, but has lenited the voiced fricative to coincide with pre-existing . The most complicated situation is found in Hare, where the plain stop is a labialized velar, the ejective member is replaced by a sequence, the aspirated affricate has turned into a fricative , and both the voiceless and voiced fricatives have been lenited to .
Phonological processes
The following phonological and phonetic statements apply to all four dialects of Slavey.
Unaspirated obstruents are either voiceless or weakly voiced, e.g. → or Aspirated obstruents are strongly aspirated. Ejectives are strongly ejective. When occurring between vowels, ejectives are often voiced, e.g. → or is usually strongly velarized, i.e. . Velar obstruents are palatalized before front vowels, e.g. → → → Velar fricatives may be labialized before round vowels. The voiceless fricative is usually labialized, e.g. → The voiced fricative is optionally labialized and may additionally be deaffricated e.g. → or or Velar stops are also labialized before round vowels. These labialized velars are not as heavily rounded as labial velars (which occur in Bearlake and Hare), e.g. → → Lateral affricates are generally alveolar, but sometimes velar, i.e. → or → or → or may be velar or glottal, i.e. → or
Vowels
+Oral FrontCentralBackCloseClose-mid ⟨ə⟩Open-midOpen a e or when followed by a back vowel ə or i or in syllable onset o u nasal vowels are marked with an ogonek accent, e.g. Vowel length is distributed as /VV/ in the dialects of Bearlake, Slavey and Mountain. South Slavey does not have the vowel.
Tone
Slavey has two tones:
high low
In Slavey orthography, high tone is marked with an acute accent, and low tone is unmarked.
Tones are both lexical and grammatical.
Lexical: 'along' vs. 'rabbit'
Syllable structure Slavey morphemes have underlying syllable structures in the stems: CV, CVC, CVnC, V, and VC. The prefixes of the stem occur as Cv, CVC, VC, CV, and C.
Stem structure Example English gloss CV tu "water" CVC ʔah "snowshoe" CVnC mį́h "net" V -e Postposition VC -éh "with"
Prefix structure Example English gloss CV de- inceptive CVC teh- "into water" V í- seriative VC ah- second-person singular subject C h- classifier (voice element)
Writing system Slavey alphabet (1973) a c chʼ d ddh dh dl dz e g gh h i j k kʼ l ł m mb n nd o r s sh t th tł tłʼ ts tsʼ tth tthʼ tʼ u w y z zh ʔ Tone is indicated with an acute accent and the ogonek indicates nasalization.
North Slavey alphabet
South Slavey alphabet
Morphology Slavey, like many Athabascan languages, has a very specific morpheme order in the verb in which the stem must come last. The morpheme order is shown in the following chart.
Position Description Position 000 Adverb Position 00 Object of incorporated postposition Position 0 Incorporated postposition Position 1 Adverbial Position 2 Distributive (yá-) Position 3 Customary (na-) Position 4 Incorporated stem Position 5 Number Position 6 Direct Object Position 7 Deictic Position 8 Theme/derivation Position 9 Aspect/derivation Position 10 Conjugation Position 11 Mode Position 12 Subject Position 13 Classifier Position 14 Stem
A Slavey verb must minimally have positions 13 and 14 to be proper. Here are some examples:
xayadedhtíMorphemesxayadedhtíPosition119131314Translation'S/he prayed' godeeMorphemesgo∅deehPosition61314Translation'S/he talks' dagodeeMorphemesdago∅deePosition461314Translation'S/he stutters'
Person, number and gender
Gender Slavey marks gender by means of prefixation on the verb theme. There are three different genders, one of which is unmarked; the other two are marked by prefixes [go-] and [de-]. However, only certain verb themes allow gender prefixes.
[go-] is used for nouns which mark location in either time or space. Some examples of these areal nouns are house (kǫ́é), land (déh), river (deh), and winter (xay). The gender pronoun can be a direct object, an oblique object or a possessor.
[de-] marks wood, leaves and branches. This gender is optional: some speakers use it and others do not.
Number Slavey marks number in the subject prefixes in position 12. The dual is marked by the prefix łéh- (Sl)/łe- (Bl)/le- (Hr).
ni̒łe̒gehtthe 'They two got stuck in a narrow passage.'
The plural is marked with the prefix go-.
Dahgogehthe 'They dance.'
ʔeha̒goni̒dhe 'We go for meat.'
Person Slavey has first, second, third, and fourth person. When in position 12, acting as a subject, first-person singular is /h-/, second-person singular is /ne-/, first-person dual/plural is /i̒d-/, and second person plural is marked by /ah-/. Third person is not marked in this position. When occurring as a direct or indirect object, the pronoun prefixes change and fourth person becomes relevant.
First-person singular takes se-. Second-person singular takes ne- Third person is marked by be-/me- Fourth person is marked by ye-
Classification Like most Athabaskan languages, Slavey has a multitude of classifications. There are five basic categories that describe the nature of an object. Some of these categories are broken up further.
Class Description Locative prefix Active Prefix Examples 1a One dimensional slender, rigid and elongated objects Ø-to ∅-tį́,-tǫ, -tǫ́ gun, canoe, pencil 1b One directions flexible objects, ropelike; plurals ∅-ɫa ∅-ɫee, -ɫa, -ɫee thread, snowshoes, rope 2a two dimensional flexible h-chú h-chuh, -chú, -chu open blanket, open tent, paper 2b Two dimensional rigid objects N/A N/A no specific lexical item 3 Solid roundish objects; chunky objects ∅-ʔǫ ∅-ʔáh, -ʔǫ, -ʔá ball, rock, stove, loaf of bread 4a Small containerful ∅-kǫ ∅-káh, -kǫ, -kah pot of coffee, puppies in a basket, cup of tea 4b Large containerful h-tǫ h-tį́h, -tǫ, tǫ́ full gas tank, bucket of water, bag of flour 5 Animate ∅-tí͔ ∅-téh, -tį́, -té, h-téh, -tį Any living thing
Tense and aspect
Tense
Slavey has only one structural tense: future. Other tenses can be indicated periphrastically.
An immediate future can be formed by the de- inceptive (position 9) plus y-.
Aspect Slavey has two semantic aspects: perfective and imperfective.
The perfective is represented in position 11:
The perfective can also be used with a past tense marker to indicate that at the point of reference, which is sometime in the past, the event was completed
The imperfective indicates that the reference time precedes the end of the event time:
Word order Slavey is a verb-final language. The basic word order is SOV.
Oblique objects precede the direct object.
Case Slavey has no case markings. To differentiate between subject, direct object, and oblique objects, word order is used. The subject will be the first noun phrase, and the direct object will occur right before the verb. The oblique objects are controlled by postpositions.