LINAm 37: Analysis of cold lake dialect, Chipewyan

Chipewyan, an Athapascan language in Canada, is found particularly along the Athabaska River and Lake, and the lakes and the streams draining into the Churchill River. The Athabaskan languages of the North are commonly referred to as Déné, after the word that in many dialects denotes a man who speaks that tongue.

It is the phonetic changes that makes the language almost unintelligible to one knowing only southern dialects. The main difference is in the presence of surd, sonant, and glottally affected th whereas most Pacific and Southern dialects have surd, sonant, and glottally affected tongue points consonants (adapted from the preface).

The first part focuses on the description of the phonetics of the language (tracings, vowels, semi-vowels, nasals, liquids, spirants, stops, stress, pitch, assimilation, etc.) as well as some historical illustrative tracings and comperative references to the other dialect groups. The second part discusses the morphology of Chipewyan (nouns, pronous, numerals, verbs, etc.). Aditionally the study contains ca. 200 images produced by a kymograph. (Re-edition. Originally published 1912 in New York).