Haida language

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Haida X̲aat Kíl
Spoken in:	Canada (Haida Gwaii / Queen Charlotte Islands), Alaska (Prince of Wales Island)
Total speakers:	First language: 55
Ranking:	Endangered
Language family:	language isolate  or Na-Dené   Haida
Writing system:	Latin alphabet
Official status
Official language in:	Council of the Haida Nation
Regulated by:	No official regulation
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	none
ISO 639-2:	none
ISO 639-3:	hai
Image:Haida lang.png Pre-European distribution of Haida
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

The Haida language (X̲aat Kíl, X̲aadas Kíl, X̲aayda Kil) is the language of the Haida people. It contains well over 30 consonants, but only eight vowels. Though sometimes thought to be a member of the Na-Dené language family, it is usually considered to be a language isolate.

It is extremely endangered, with only 35–50 living speakers, nearly all of whom are over the age of 70.

Currently Haida citizens and friends in all three dialect communities are working to revitalizing the language. In Skidegate, fluent speakers gather on a daily basis to work on the southern or Skidegate dialect and have produced a large series of recordings. In Masset, a group of younger learners is working with their fluent elders to reintegrate the northern or Masset dialect into their daily lives. In Alaska, the community conducts regular language classes for teens and adults, and has built a website complete with on-line recordings of the Kaigani dialect.

Contents 1 Sounds 1.1 Consonants 1.2 Tone 2 External links

[edit] Sounds

[edit] Consonants

		Bilabial	Alveolar		Palato-Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Epi- glottal	Glottal
			central	lateral
Plosive	plain1	b̥	d̥				g̊	ɢ̥		ʔ
	aspirated	pʰ	tʰ				kʰ	qʰ
	ejective	p’	t’				k’	q’
Affricate	lenis			d̥͡l²	d̥͡ʒ̊
	fortis		t͡s	t͡ɬʰ	t͡ʃ³				ʡ͡ʜ
	ejective		t͡s’	t͡ɬ’	t͡ʃ’
Fricative	voiceless		s	ɬ			x	χ	ʜ4	h
Nasal	plain	m	n				ŋ
	glottalized	mˀ	nˀ
Approximant	plain			ɫ	j		w
	glottalized			ˀl

1. Inside words, the plain stops can be voiced.
2. Technically [d̥͡l] is not an affricate; it is released as an approximant rather than a fricative.
3. For some speakers, [t͡ʃ] occurs only at the beginning of syllables, while [t͡s] does not occur there. They are the same phoneme. A similar situation applies with [t͡s’] and [t͡ʃ’].^{[citation needed]}
4. Instead of an epiglottal fricative, the Masset dialect uses an epiglottal trill.

[edit] Tone

Haida features phonemic tone, the nature of which differs by dialect. In Kaigani the system is one of pitch accent, with at most one syllable per word featuring high tone; in Masset and Skidegate tone is contrastive in heavy syllables. All the above systems feature two tones: high and low.

[edit] External links

• Haida language
• Listen to the sounds of Haida
• Raven, a story in the Haida language
• Haida writing systemsde:Haida (Sprache)

nl:Haida (taal) fi:Haida