Dogrib
Tłı̨chǫ Yati��
Spoken in	Canada
Region	Northwest Territories
Total speakers	2,640 [1]
Language family	Den�-Yeniseian Na-Den� Athabaskan-Eyak Athabaskan Northern Athabaskan Dogrib
Official status
Official language in	Northwest Territories
Regulated by	No official regulation
Language codes
ISO 639-1	None
ISO 639-2	dgr
ISO 639-3	dgr
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

Dogrib, the English translation of the indigenous name Tłı̨chǫ Yati�� (IPA: [tɬʰĩtʃʰ�� jatʰ��ː]), is a Northern Athabaskan language spoken by the First Nations Tłı̨chǫ people of the Canadian territory Northwest Territories. According to Statistics Canada in 2006, there were approximately 2,640 people who spoke Dogrib.^[1]

The Dogrib region covers the northern shore of Great Slave Lake, reaching almost up to Great Bear Lake. Rae-Edzo, now known by its Dogrib name, Behchokǫ̀, is the largest community in the Dogrib Region.

Contents 1 Phonology 1.1 Consonants 1.2 Vowels 2 Grammar 3 Examples 4 Trivia 5 Notes 6 Further reading 7 External links

Phonology

Consonants

The consonants of Dogrib in the standard orthography are listed below (with IPA notation in brackets):

		Bilabial	Alveolar		Post- alveolar	Palatal	Velar		Glottal
			central	lateral			plain	labialized
Nasal	plain	m  /m/	n  /n/
	prenasalized	mb  /mb/	nd  /nd/
Plosive	voiced	b  /b/	d  /d/				g  /ɡ/	gw  /ɡʷ/
	voiceless		t  /t/				k  /k/	kw  /kʷ/	'  /ʔ/
	ejective		t'  /tʼ/				k'  /kʼ/	kw'  /kʷʼ/
Affricate	voiced		dz  /dz/	dl  /dɮ/	j  /dʒ/
	voiceless		ts  /ts/	tl  /tɬ/	ch  /tʃ/
	ejective		ts'  /tsʼ/	tl'  /tɬʼ/	ch'  /tʃʼ/
Fricative	voiced		z  /z/		zh  /ʒ/		gh  /ɣ/
	voiceless		s  /s/	ł  /ɬ/	sh  /ʃ/		x  /x/		h  /h/
Approximant	voiced		r  /ɹ/	l  /l/		y  /j/		w  /w/
	voiceless							wh  /ʍ/

Vowels

• short
  • a /a/
  • e /e/
  • i /i/
  • o /o/
  • ą /��/
  • ę /ẽ/
  • ı̨ /ĩ/
  • ǫ /��/
• long
  • aa /aː/
  • ee /eː/
  • ii /iː/
  • oo /oː/
  • ąą /��ː/
  • ęę /ẽː/
  • ı̨ı̨ /ĩː/
  • ǫǫ /��ː/
• nasal vowels are marked by an ogonek (called wighǫą - 'its little nose' in Dogrib) e.g., ą
• low tone is marked with a grave accent (called wets'a�� - 'its hat' in Dogrib), e.g., ��
• high tone is never marked

Grammar

Typologically, Dogrib is an agglutinating, polysynthetic head-marking language, but many of its affixes combine into contractions more like fusional languages. The canonical word order of Dogrib is SOV. Dogrib words are modified primarily by prefixes, which is unusual for an SOV language (suffixes are expected).

In addition to verbs and nouns, there are pronouns, clitics of various functions, demonstratives, numerals, postpositions, adverbs, and conjunctions in Dogrib. The class of adjectives is very small, probably around two dozen words: most descriptive words are verbs rather than adjectives.

Examples

^[2]

• Tłı̨chǫ got'ı̨ı̨̀ Tłı̨chǫ people
• tłı̨ dog
• tłı̨cho horse (literally: 'big dog')
• łıwe / łıe fish
• detʼǫ duck
• ey�� egg
• ejietʼ�� milk
• d��ga wolf
• tʼooh poplar
• deh river
• el�� canoe
• dı island
• kwe rock
• s��h / sh��h mount
• tı lake
• zhah snow
• chǫ / tsǫ rain
• ło smoke
• kǫ̀ house
• degoo white
• dezǫ black
• dekʼo red

Trivia

^[3] In a discussion of the words "Nohtsi Naowo" (pronounced, roughly, note-see na-whoa; meaning "God's rule" or "God's authority"), "Nohtsi Wek'e" (note-see wek-ay; meaning "God's way") and "Nohtsi K'aowo" (note-see ka-whoa), Shawn Maclellan comments: "George [Tatsiechele] explains it this way, "When someone is arguing with you on a matter that you know is true, and won't listen to what you have to say, the only thing you can say is Nohtsi K'aowo, God is the boss!""

Notes

Further reading

• Saxon, Leslie and Mary Siemens. Tłı̨chǫ Yati�� Multimedia Dictionary [1].

External links

• Dogrib at Ethnologue