The Tsuutʼina language
(formerly known as ''Sarcee'' or ''Sarsi'')
is spoken by the people of the
Tsuutʼina Nation
The Tsuutʼina Nation (also Tsu Tʼina, Tsuu Tʼina, Tsúùtínà – "a great number of people"; formerly Sarcee, Sarsi) ( srs, Tsúùtʼínà) is a First Nation band government in Alberta, Canada. Their territory today is confined to the ...
, whose
reserve and community is near
Calgary, Alberta
Calgary ( ) is the largest city in the western Canadian province of Alberta and the largest metro area of the three Canadian Prairies, Prairie Provinces. As of 2021, the city proper had a population of 1,306,784 and a metropolitan population ...
. It belongs to the
Athabaskan language family, which also include the
Navajo
The Navajo (; British English: Navaho; nv, Diné or ') are a Native Americans in the United States, Native American people of the Southwestern United States.
With more than 399,494 enrolled tribal members , the Navajo Nation is the largest fe ...
and
Chiricahua of the south, and the
Dene Suline
Chipewyan or Denesuline (ethnonym: ), often simply called Dene, is the language spoken by the Chipewyan people of northwestern Canada. It is categorized as part of the Northern Athabaskan language family. Dënësųłinë́ has nearly 12,000 ...
and
Tłı̨chǫ
The Tłı̨chǫ (, ) people, sometimes spelled Tlicho and also known as the Dogrib, are a Dene First Nations people of the Athabaskan-speaking ethnolinguistic group living in the Northwest Territories of Canada.
Name
The name ''Dogrib'' i ...
of the north.
Nomenclature
The name ''Tsuutʼina'' comes from the Tsuutʼina self designation ''Tsúùtʼínà'', meaning "many people", "nation tribe", or "people among the beavers".
''Sarcee'' is a deprecated
exonym
An endonym (from Greek: , 'inner' + , 'name'; also known as autonym) is a common, ''native'' name for a geographical place, group of people, individual person, language or dialect, meaning that it is used inside that particular place, group, o ...
from
Siksiká
The Blackfoot language, also called Siksiká (its denomination in ISO 639-3, ; Siksiká Help:IPA, ik͡siká #Writing system, syllabics ), often anglicised as ', is an Algonquian languages, Algonquian language spoken by the Blackfoot Confede ...
.
Phonology
Consonants
The consonants of Tsuutʼina in the standard orthography are listed below (with IPA notation in brackets):
Vowels
There are four distinct vowels in Tsuutʼina: i, a, o, and u. While a and o are fairly constant, i and u can vary considerably.
Vowels are also distinguished by
length
Length is a measure of distance. In the International System of Quantities, length is a quantity with dimension distance. In most systems of measurement a base unit for length is chosen, from which all other units are derived. In the Inte ...
and
tone, similar to other Athabaskan languages.
* long vowels are marked with an
asterisk
The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , ''asteriskos'', "little star", is a typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a heraldic star.
Computer scientists and mathematicians often vo ...
, e.g., a*
* high tone is marked with an
acute accent, e.g., á
* low tone is marked with a
grave accent, e.g., à
* medial tone is marked with a
macron
Macron may refer to:
People
* Emmanuel Macron (born 1977), president of France since 2017
** Brigitte Macron (born 1953), French teacher, wife of Emmanuel Macron
* Jean-Michel Macron (born 1950), French professor of neurology, father of Emmanu ...
, e.g., ā
Nouns
Nouns in Tsuutʼina are not declined, and most plural nouns are not distinguished from singular nouns. However, kinship terms are distinguished between singular and plural form by adding the suffix -ká (or -kúwá) to the end of the noun or by using the word ''yìná''.
List of nouns
People
*Husband - ''kòlà''
*Man, human - ''dìná''
*Wife - ''tsʼòyá''
*Woman - ''tsʼìkā''
*grandmother - ''is'su''
*grandfather - ''is'sa''
*mother - ''in'na''
*father - ''it'ta''
Nature
*Buffalo, cow - ''xāní''
*Cloud - ''nàkʼús''
*Dog - ''tłí(chʼà)''
*Fire - ''kù''
*Mud, dirt - ''gútłʼìs''
*Snow - ''zòs''
*Water - ''tú''
Words and phrases
*my name is (..) - ''sizi''
Noun possession
Nouns can exist in free form or possessed form. When in possessed form, the prefixes listed below can be attached to nouns to show possession. For example, ''más'', "knife", can be affixed with the 1st person prefix to become ''sìmázàʼ'' or "my knife". Note that ''-mázàʼ'' is the possessed form of the noun.
Some nouns, like ''más'', as shown above, can alternate between free form and possessed form. A few nouns, like ''zòs'', "snow", are never possessed and exist only in free form. Other nouns, such as ''-tsìʼ'', "head", have no free form and must always be possessed.
Typical possession prefixes
*1st person - si-
*2nd person - ni-
*3rd person - mi-
*4th person (Athabascan) - ɣi-
Language revitalization
Tsuut'ina is a critically
endangered language
An endangered language or moribund language is a language that is at risk of disappearing as its speakers die out or shift to speaking other languages. Language loss occurs when the language has no more native speakers and becomes a " dead lang ...
, with only 150 speakers, 80 of whom speak it as their mother tongue, according to the 2016 Canadian census.
The Tsuut'ina Nation has created th
Tsuut'ina Gunaha Institutewith the intention of creating new fluent speakers. This includes full K-4 immersion education at schools on the Nation and placing stop signs in the Tsuut'ina language at intersections in the Tsuut'ina Nation.
Tsuut’ina Nation displaying Indigenous language stop signs
/ref>
Bibliography
*Cook, Eung-Do. (1971a). "Vowels and Tone in Sarcee", ''Language'' 47, 164-179.
*Cook, Eung-Do. (1971b). "Morphophonemics of Two Sarcee Classifiers", ''International Journal of American Linguistics'' 37, 152-155.
*Cook, Eung-Do. (1971d). "Sarcee Numerals", ''Anthropological Linguistics'' 13, 435-441.
*Cook, Eung-Do. (1972). "Sarcee Verb Paradigms", Mercury Series Paper No. 2. Ottawa: National Museum of Man.
*Cook, Eung-Do. (1973b). "Complementation in Sarcee". npublished?*Cook, Eung-Do. (1978b). "The Synchronic and Diachronic Status of Sarcee ɣy", ''International Journal of American Linguistics'' 43, 259-268.
*Cook, Eung-Do. (1978c). "Palatalizations and Related Rules in Sarcee", in: ''Linguistic Studies of Native Canada'', eds. Cook, E.-D. and Kaye, J. 19-36. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press.
*Cook, Eung-Do. (1978d). "The Verb 'BE' in Sarcee", ''Amerindia'' 3, 105-113.
*Cook, Eung-Do. (1984). ''A Sarcee Grammar''. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press. .
*Goddard, P. E. (1915). "Sarcee Texts", ''University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology'' 11, 189-277.
*Honigmann, J. (1956). "Notes on Sarsi Kin Behavior", ''Anthropologica'' 11, 17-38.
*Hofer, E. (1973). "Phonological Change in Sarcee". npublished?*Hofer, E. (1974). "Topics in Sarcee Syntax". M.A. Thesis. The University of Calgary.
*Hoijer, H. and Joël, J.. (1963). "Sarcee Nouns", in ''Studies in the Athabaskan Languages'', eds. Hoijer, H. et al., 62-75.
*Li, F.-K.. (1930). "A Study of Sarcee Verb Stems", ''International Journal of American Linguistics'' 6, 3-27.
*Sapir, E. (1924). "Personal Names Among the Sarcee Indians", ''American Anthropologist'' n.s. 26, 108-199.
*Sapir, E. (1925). "Pitch Accent in Sarcee, An Athabaskan language", ''Journal de la Société des Américanistes de Paris'' n.s. 17, 185-205.
*Sarcee Culture Program. 1979. ''Tsu Tʼina and the Buffalo''. Calgary.
See also
* Tsuutʼina Nation
The Tsuutʼina Nation (also Tsu Tʼina, Tsuu Tʼina, Tsúùtínà – "a great number of people"; formerly Sarcee, Sarsi) ( srs, Tsúùtʼínà) is a First Nation band government in Alberta, Canada. Their territory today is confined to the ...
References
External links
The Verb «Be» in Sarcee
{{Languages of Canada
Tsuut'ina
Northern Athabaskan languages
Indigenous languages of the North American Plains
First Nations languages in Canada