Chilcotin or Tŝilhqotʼin is a Northern Athabaskan language spoken in British Columbia by the Tsilhqotʼin people.

Name The name Chilcotin is the anglicized form of the Chilcotin name for themselves, , literally "people of the red ochre river". It has many variations in pronunciation and in spelling : Tsilhqotʼin, Tsilhqútʼin, Tsinlhqut’in, Tŝinlhqut’in. The form Tŝilhqut’in was considered the correct spelling in the 1970s, the form Tŝilhqot’in is the most commonly used in 2021. The people also call themselves ("people of the Earth", "people of the world", meaning "Native") and also call the language (lit. "the Native way").

Phonology Consonants Chilcotin has 47 consonants, likely the largest number within the Athabaskan family:

Bilabial Dental Alveolar Palatal Velar Uvular Glottal median sibilant lateral plain labial plain labial Nasal Occlusive tenuis aspirated ejective Continuant voiceless voiced

Like many other Athabaskan languages, Chilcotin does not 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:

FrontCentral Back tense-long lax-short tense-long lax-short tense-long lax-short High Low

Chilcotin has both tense and lax vowel phonemes. Additionally, tense vowels may become lax from vowel laxing.

Every given Chilcotin vowel has a number of different phonetic realizations from complex phonological processes (such as nasalization, laxing, flattening). For instance, the vowel can be variously pronounced .

Tone Chilcotin is a tonal language with two tones: high tone and low tone.

Phonological processes Chilcotin has vowel flattening and consonant harmony. Consonant harmony (sibilant harmony) is rather common in the Athabaskan language family. Vowel flattening is unique to Chilcotin but is similar to phonological processes in other unrelated Interior Salishan languages spoken in the same area, such as Shuswap, Stʼátʼimcets, and Thompson River Salish (and thus was probably borrowed into Chilcotin). That 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 by which the phoneme is nasalizes the preceding vowel. It occurs when the vowel + sequence is followed by a (tautosyllabic) continuant consonant (such as ).

| /pinɬ/ || → || [pĩɬ] | 'trap'

Vowel laxing is a process by which tense vowels () become lax when followed by a syllable-final : the tense and lax distinction is neutralized.

| /ʔɛstɬʼuh/ || → || [ʔɛstɬʼʊh]

| 'I'm knitting'

| (u → ʊ) |- | /sɛjæh/ || → || [sɛjɛh]

| 'my throat'

| (æ → ɛ)

Vowel flattening Chilcotin has a type of retracted tongue root harmony. Generally, "flat" consonants lower vowels in both directions. Assimilation is both progressive and regressive.

Chilcotin consonants can be grouped into three categories: neutral, sharp, and flat.

Neutral Sharp Flat p, pʰ, m t, tʰ, tʼ, n tɬ, tɬʰ, tɬʼ, ɬ, l tʃ, tʃʰ, tʃʼ, ç, j ʔ, h ts, tsʰ, tsʼ, s, z k, kʰ, kʼ kʷ, kʷʰ, kʼʷ, xʷ, w sˤ-series: tsˤ, tsʰˤ, tsʼˤ, sˤ, zˤ q-series: q, qʰ, qʼ, χ, ʁ qʷ, qʷʰ, qʼʷ, χʷ, ʁʷ

Flat consonants trigger vowel flattening. Sharp consonants block vowel flattening. Neutral consonants do not affect vowel flattening in any way.

The flat consonants can be further divided into two types:

a -series (i.e. etc.), and a -series (i.e. etc.).

The -series is stronger than the -series by affecting vowels farther away.

This table shows both unaffected vowels and flattened vowels:

unaffectedvowel flattenedvowel i ᵊi or e ɪ ᵊɪ u o ʊ ɔ ɛ ə æ a

The vowel surfaces as if after a flat consonant and as before a flat consonant:

| /sˤit/ || → || [sˤᵊit]

| 'kinɡfisher'

| (sˤ flattens i → ᵊi) |- | /nisˤtsˤun/ || → || [nesˤtsˤon]

| 'owl'

| (sˤ flattens i → e)

The progressive and regressive flattening processes are described below.

Progressive flattening In the progressive (left-to-right) flattening, the -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 -series, the stronger -series consonants affects the immediately following vowel. However, it affects the vowel in the following syllable as well if the first flattened vowel is a lax vowel. If the first flattened is tense, the vowel of the following syllable is not 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)

Thus, the neutral consonants are transparent in the flattening process. In the first word 'he's comatose', flattens the of the first syllable to and the of the second syllable to . In the word 'I'm sleeping', flattens to . Since, however, the vowel of the first syllable is , which is a tense vowel, the cannot flatten the of the second syllable.

The sharp consonants, however, block the progressive flattening caused by the -series:

| /tizˤ.kʼɛn/ || → || [tezˤ.kʼɛn]

| 'it's burning'

| (flattening of ɛ is blocked by kʼ: *tezˤkʼən) |- | /sˤɛ.kɛn/ || → || [sˤə.kɛn]

| 'it's dry'

| (flattening of ɛ is blocked by k: *sˤəkən)

Regressive flattening In regressive (right-to-left) harmony, the -series flattens the preceding vowel.

| /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 -series, however, is much stronger than the progressive harmony. The 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, ɛ → ə, u → o) |- | /nækʷɛnitsˤɛ́sˤ/ || → || [nakʷənetsˤə́sˤ]

| 'fire's gone out'

| (tsˤ, sˤ flatten all vowels, æ → a, ɛ → ə)

Both progressive and regressive flattening processes occur in Chilcotin words:

| /niqʰin/ || → || [neqʰᵊin]

| 'we paddled' |- | /ʔɛqʰɛn/ || → || [ʔəqʰən]

| 'husband'

References

Bibliography

(unpublished manuscript). (unpublished manuscript).

(revised version of the author's Doctoral dissertation, Johns Hopkins University).

(unpublished manuscript).

External links The Chilcotin Language (YDLI) Bibliography of Materials on the Chilcotin Language (YDLI) Official Tsilhqotʼin Language Website