Tsuutʼina language


The Tsuutʼina language is spoken by the people of the Tsuutʼina Nation, whose reserve and community is near Calgary, Alberta. It belongs to the Athabaskan language family, which also include the Navajo and Chiricahua of the south, and the Dene Suline and Tłı̨chǫ 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 from Siksiká.

Phonology

Consonants

The consonants of Tsuutʼina in the standard orthography are listed below :
* is only found in mimetic buꞏ 'to buzz' and borrowed buꞏs 'cat'. The phonemic status of and is questionable; they might be before another vowel. is quite rare but clearly phonemic.

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 and tone, similar to other Athabaskan languages.

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 to the end of the noun or by using the word yìná.

List of nouns

People

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