Tagish was a language spoken by the Tagish or Carcross-Tagish, a First Nations people that historically lived in the

Northwest Territories The Northwest Territories (abbreviated ''NT'' or ''NWT''; french: Territoires du Nord-Ouest, formerly ''North-Western Territory'' and ''North-West Territories'' and namely shortened as ''Northwest Territory'') is a federal territory of Canada. ...

and

Yukon Yukon (; ; formerly called Yukon Territory and also referred to as the Yukon) is the smallest and westernmost of Canada's three territories. It also is the second-least populated province or territory in Canada, with a population of 43,964 as ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by to ...

. The name Tagish derives from ''/ta:gizi dene/'', or "Tagish people", which is how they refer to themselves, where ''/ta:gizi/'' is a place name meaning "it (spring ice) is breaking up.Yinka Déné Language Institute. (2006). The Tagish Language. https://www.ydli.org/langs/tagish.htm The language is a

Northern Athabaskan language Northern Athabaskan is a geographic sub-grouping of the Athabaskan language family spoken by indigenous peoples in the northern part of North America, particularly in Alaska (Alaskan Athabaskans), Yukon, and the Northwest Territories. The Nor ...

, closely related to

Tahltan The Tahltan or Nahani are a First Nations people of the Athabaskan-speaking ethnolinguistic group who live in northern British Columbia around Telegraph Creek, Dease Lake, and Iskut. The Tahltan constitute the fourth division of the ''Nahane' ...

and

Kaska The Kaska or Kaska Dena are a First Nations people of the Athabaskan-speaking ethnolinguistic group living mainly in northern British Columbia and the southeastern Yukon in Canada. The Kaska language, originally spoken by the Kaska, is an Athaba ...

. The three languages are often grouped together as Tahltan-Kaska-Tagish; the three languages are considered dialects of the same language by some.Alderete, J., Blenkiron, A., &Thompson, J. E. (2014). Some notes on stem phonology and the development of affricates in Tahltan (Northern Athabaskan). Ms., Simon Fraser University and Northwest Community College. As of 2004, there was only 1 native fluent speaker of Tagish documented: Lucy Wren (Agaymā/Ghùch Tlâ).Greenaway, J. (2006, November 08). Tagish First Voices Project. http://www.firstvoices.com/en/Tagish/welcome She died in 2008.

Classification

Tagish is among many other languages within the large language family of

Na-Dene languages Na-Dene (; also Nadene, Na-Dené, Athabaskan–Eyak–Tlingit, Tlina–Dene) is a family of Native American languages that includes at least the Athabaskan languages, Eyak, and Tlingit languages. Haida was formerly included, but is now consider ...

, which includes another group of indigenous North American languages called the Athabaskan languages. The Northern Athabaskan languages are often considered to be part of a complex of languages entitled Tagish-Tahltan-Kaska. The languages in this complex have an extremely similar lexicon and grammar but differ in systems of

obstruent An obstruent () is a speech sound such as , , or that is formed by ''obstructing'' airflow. Obstruents contrast with sonorants, which have no such obstruction and so resonate. All obstruents are consonants, but sonorants include vowels as well as ...

s. Known alternatively as Dene K'e, Tagish is also closely related to the neighboring languages Tahltan,

, and Southern Tutchone.

History

The culture of the Tagish people has its roots in both the coastal Indian cultures and those from the interior (

Tlingit The Tlingit ( or ; also spelled Tlinkit) are indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America. Their language is the Tlingit language (natively , pronounced ),

and

Athabaskan languages Athabaskan (also spelled ''Athabascan'', ''Athapaskan'' or ''Athapascan'', and also known as Dene) is a large family of indigenous languages of North America, located in western North America in three areal language groups: Northern, Pacific C ...

Athapaskan Athabaskan (also spelled ''Athabascan'', ''Athapaskan'' or ''Athapascan'', and also known as Dene) is a large family of indigenous languages of North America, located in western North America in three areal language groups: Northern, Pacific ...

respectively). Trade and travel across the Chilkoot pass contributed to the mixing of these cultures. In the 19th and early 20th centuries,

Tlingit The Tlingit ( or ; also spelled Tlinkit) are indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America. Their language is the Tlingit language (natively , pronounced ),

-speaking peoples began to move in from the coast and intermarry with the native Tagish-speaking population. By the time outsiders first made contact in the 1880s, the majority of the people were bilingual, and the Tlingit language had replaced Tagish as the language of the majority. Tagish became less common partially because native traditions were domesticated and suppressed in writing by the colonial administration. The most significant impact on the decline of nearly every native language in Canada came when aboriginal children were forced to attend residential schools where they were forbidden to speak their own languages. After the Yukon Gold Rush in 1898, English became the majority language of the area. As the majority of children attended the English-only Chooutla Anglican school nearby, fluency in the native languages began to be lost. Language courses began to be reintroduced in the 1970s, but the programs had little funding and were not comparable to the French or English programs present. More recently, political awareness has led to movements to gain constitutional provisions for the language, as well as a greater focus on in-school programs, language conferences, and public awareness. For example, beginning in 2004, Southern Tutchone and Tagish languages were being revitalized and protected through an on-line approach called FirstVoices. The federal government signed an agreement giving the territory $4.25 million over five years to "preserve, develop and enhance aboriginal languages", however Tagish was not one of the offered native language programs. Ken McQueen stated that despite efforts, the language will likely become extinct after the last fluent Tagish speaker dies.

Tagish on First Voices

FirstVoices is an indigenous language computer database and web-based teaching and development tool. Tagish was one of the first to be added to the FirstVoices digital multimedia archive of endangered indigenous languages. Resources on the site include sound files of name pronunciation, word lists, and some children's books written in the language. This language documentation is intended to create a holistic platform where identity, oral tradition, elders' knowledge and the centrality of the land can all be intertwined. On the Tagish FirstVoices page, there are a total of 36 words and 442 phrases archived and sound recordings of the alphabet. To provide a cultural context, there are also a community slide show and art gallery section. This website includes greetings from a multitude of elders complete with contact information about the website's contributors.

Notable people

Angela Sidney Angela Sidney, (January 4, 1902 – July 17, 1991) was a Tagish storyteller. She co-authored two narratives of traditional Tagish legends and a historical document of Tagish place names for southern Yukon. For her linguistics and ethnography ...

was a prominent activist for the use and reclamation of her Tagish language and heritage in the southern Yukon Territory. Born in 1902, her heritage was Tagish on her father's side and Tlingit on her mother's side. Sidney's accomplishments include working with

Julie Cruikshank Julie Cruikshank is a Canadian anthropologist known for her research collaboration with Indigenous peoples of the Yukon. She is a Professor Emerita in the Department of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia. She has lived and wor ...

, documenting and authoring traditional stories as well as becoming a member of the

Order of Canada The Order of Canada (french: Ordre du Canada; abbreviated as OC) is a Canadian state order and the second-highest honour for merit in the system of orders, decorations, and medals of Canada, after the Order of Merit. To coincide with the cen ...

in 1986. Sidney died in 1991. Lucy Wren was the last known fluent speaker. She was actively involved in the recordings and stories used on the First Voices website including the "Our Elders Statement" before passing in 2008. This work by Lucy Wren has been continued by her son Norman James as he works to record more language and culture of the Tagish and Tlingit people for the Yukon Native Language Centre and the First Voices website.

Geographic Distribution

The Tagish people make their territory in southern

Yukon Territory Yukon (; ; formerly called Yukon Territory and also referred to as the Yukon) is the smallest and westernmost of Canada's three territories. It also is the second-least populated province or territory in Canada, with a population of 43,964 as ...

and northern

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, for ...

in Canada, most specifically at Tagish, which lies between

Marsh Lake Marsh Lake (Mud Lake) is a widening of the Yukon River southeast of Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada. It is over 30 kilometres long and ranges from three to four kilometres wide. The co-ordinates of the lake are , and is 2,147 feet above sea level. The ...

and

Tagish Lake Tagish Lake is a lake in Yukon and northern British Columbia, Canada. The lake is more than long and about wide. It has two arms, the Taku Arm in the east which is very long and mostly in British Columbia and Windy Arm in the west, mostly in ...

, and

Carcross Carcross, originally known as Caribou Crossing, ( tli, Nadashaa Héeni) is an unincorporated community in Yukon, Canada, on Bennett Lake and Nares Lake. It is home to the Carcross/Tagish First Nation. It is south-southeast by the Alaska Highway ...

, located between

Bennett Bennett may refer to: People *Bennett (name), including a list of people with the surname and given name Places Canada * Bennett, Alberta *Bennett, British Columbia *Bennett Lake, in the British Columbia and Yukon Territory ** Bennett Range ** Ben ...

and Nares Lake. The language was used most frequently in the Lewes and Teslin plateaus.

Phonology

The Tagish language includes aspiration, glottalization, nasal sounds, resonance, and tones.Krauss, M. E., & Golla, V. K. (1978). Northern Athapaskan languages. In Handbook of North American Indians: Subarctic (Vol. 6, pp. 67-85). Government Printing Office 1978. Tagish is characterized by the simplest stem-initial consonant system of the Northern Athabaskan languages, has a conservative vowel system and conserves stem-final consonants. Final

glottalization Glottalization is the complete or partial closure of the glottis during the articulation of another sound. Glottalization of vowels and other sonorants is most often realized as creaky voice (partial closure). Glottalization of obstruent consonan ...

is lost. Constricted vowels are pronounced with low tone. The Tagish language includes nouns, verbs, and particles. Particles and nouns are single, sometimes compounded,

morphemes A morpheme is the smallest meaningful constituent of a linguistic expression. The field of linguistic study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology. In English, morphemes are often but not necessarily words. Morphemes that stand alone a ...

, but the difference is that nouns can be inflected and particles cannot. Verbs are the most complex class in this language because their stemmed morphemes have many prefixes which indicate inflectional and derivational categories. The total inventory of

phonemes In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language. For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-wes ...

present in Tagish includes: The language makes use of the Latin writing system.

Consonants

Vowels

The short vowels /i, e, a, o, u/; as well as their long counterparts /iː, eː, aː, oː, uː/. Long vowels are denoted with a macron as follows: .

Nasal vowel A nasal vowel is a vowel that is produced with a lowering of the soft palate (or velum) so that the air flow escapes through the nose and the mouth simultaneously, as in the French vowel or Amoy []. By contrast, oral vowels are produced with ...

s are denoted by a Hook (diacritic), hook as follows: .

Tone

High tone is marked with (v́) on short vowels and (v́v) on long vowels while low tones remain unmarked

Vocabulary

Some women's names contain the nasalized prefix ''Maa'' which translates directly to "mother of."

References

External links

*Yukon Native Language Centre'
introduction to the Tagish Language
**Audio lessons. https://web.archive.org/web/20080110174009/http://www.ynlc.ca/materials/lessons/wrenl/index.html ** Audio storybooks. http://www.ynlc.ca/materials/stories/tg.html
OLAC resources in and about the Tagish language
*The Tagish First Voices Project. http://www.firstvoices.com/en/Tagish/welcome **Word list. http://www.firstvoices.com/en/Tagish/words **Phrases. http://www.firstvoices.com/en/Tagish/phrase-books **Audio files of First Words. http://www.firstvoices.com/en/Tagish *Audio files, word lists, and other resources at Glottlog. http://glottolog.org/resource/languoid/id/tagi1240 *List of English-Tagish word lists. Renato, F. B. (2014, March 21). Freelang Tagish-English dictionary. Retrieved from http://www.freelang.net/dictionary/tagish.php * * * *The Endangered Languages Project. http://www.endangeredlanguages.com/lang/1448 {{authority control Northern Athabaskan languages Indigenous languages of the North American Subarctic First Nations languages in Canada First Nations in Yukon Endangered Athabaskan languages 2008 disestablishments in Alaska Extinct languages of North America Languages extinct in the 2000s