Sekani language

Sekani
Tse'khene
Native to	Canada
Region	British Columbia
Ethnicity	1,410 Sekani people (2014, FPCC)
Native speakers	30 (2014, FPCC)
Language family	Dené–Yeniseian? Na-Dené Athabaskan Northern Athabaskan Sekani
Language codes
ISO 639-3	sek
Glottolog	seka1250

The Sekani language is a Northern Athabaskan language spoken by the Sekani people of north-central British Columbia, Canada.

Sounds

Consonants

Sekani has 33 consonants:

		Bilabial	Alveolar		Post- Alveolar	Velar		Glottal
			central	lateral		plain	labial
Stop	unaspirated	p	t			k	kʷ
	aspirated	(pʰ)	tʰ			kʰ	kʷʰ
	ejective		tʼ			kʼ	kʼʷ	ʔ
Affricate	unaspirated		ts	tɬ	tʃ
	aspirated		tsʰ	tɬʰ	tʃʰ
	ejective		tsʼ	tɬʼ	tʃʼ
Nasal		m	n
Fricative- Approximant*	voiceless		s	ɬ	ç	x	xʷ	h
	voiced		z	l	j	ɣ	w

• *Sekani, like other Athabaskan languages, does not contrast fricatives with approximants.

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
High	i		u
Mid	e	ə	o
Low		a

Tone

Sekani has two tones, low and high. High is the default. That is, syllables normally have high tone. Syllables phonologically marked for tone are low.

Ethnologue/ISO 639-3 Code

SEK

Examples

Kwadacha Tsek'ene dialect

• dune man; person
• tlįį dog
• wudzįįh caribou
• yus snow
• chǫ rain
• k’wus cloud
• kwùn fire
• ’įįbèh summer
• too water
• mun lake
• nun land
• tselh axe
• ʼukèʼ foot
• ’àtse my grandfather
• ’àtsǫǫ my grandmother
• lhìghè’ one
• lhèkwudut’e two
• tadut’e three
• dįįdut’e four
• ǫ yes
• Tlįį duchę̀’ ’ehdasde January
• Dahyusè’ nùkehde wìlę February
• Nùtsʼiide March
• ʼUtʼǫ̀ʼ kùnuyehde May
• Jìje dinììdulh July
• Yhììh nunutsunde wìlę August
• Yhììh ukudeh’àsde September
• ’Udììtl’ǫh ’uwit’į̀į̀h October
• Yus ’ut’į̀į̀h November
• Khuye ’uwììjàh December

Bibliography

• Hargus, Sharon. (1988). The Lexical Phonology of Sekani. (Outstanding Dissertations in Linguistics). New York: Garland Publishers. ISBN 0-8240-5187-4
• Mithun, Marianne. (1999). The Languages of Native North America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-23228-7 (hbk); ISBN 0-521-29875-X.

Articles

• Hargus, Sharon (2009) Effects on consonant duration in Fort Ware Tsek'ene. Presented at Athabaskan/Dene Languages Conference, Eugene, OR. PDF of slides, PDF of references.
• Hargus, Sharon (2009) "Causatives and transitionals in Kwadacha Tsek'ene." (slides) Presented at the Athabaskan Languages Conference, Berkeley, CA. [Supported by NSF DEL-0651853 and Kwadacha Education Society]
• Hargus, Sharon (2009) "Phonetic vs. phonological rounding in Athabaskan languages." PDF of slides, PDF of references. Presented at LabPhon 12, Albuquerque, NM. (reposted July 16, 2010). The article will appear in Journal of Laboratory Phonology 3:163-193.

External links

• First Voices Kwadacha Tsek'ene Community Portal
• Sekani entry on First Nations Languages of British Columbia site
• Bibliography of Sekani Linguistics
• Map of Northwest Coast First Nations (including Sekani)
• OLAC resources in and about the Sekani language