Carrier language

Carrier
Dakeł (ᑕᗸᒡ)
Spoken in	Canada
Region	Central Interior of British Columbia
Ethnicity	Carrier people
Native speakers	1,000  (no date)
Language family	Dené–Yeniseian Na-Dené Athabaskan Northern Athabaskan Carrier
Language codes
ISO 639-3	either: crx – Carrier caf – Southern Carrier
This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters.

The Carrier language is a Northern Athabaskan language. It is named after the Dakelh people, a First Nations people of the Central Interior of British Columbia, Canada, for whom Carrier is the usual English name. People who are referred to as Carrier speak two related languages. One, Babine-Witsuwit'en is sometimes referred to as Northern Carrier. The other, Carrier proper, includes what are sometimes referred to as Central Carrier and Southern Carrier.

Phonology

Inventory

Consonants

All dialects of Carrier have essentially the same consonant system, which is shown in this chart.^[1]

		Bilabial	Alveolar		Post- alveolar	Velar		Glottal
			central	lateral		plain	labial
Nasal		m	n		(ɲ)	(ŋ)
Plosive	unaspirated	p	t			k	kʷ	ʔ
	aspirated		tʰ			kʰ	kʷʰ
	ejective		tʼ			kʼ	kʷʼ
Affricate	unaspirated		ts	tɬ	tʃ
	aspirated		tsʰ	tɬʰ	tʃʰ
	ejective		tsʼ	tɬʼ	tʃʼ
Fricative	voiceless	(f)	s	ɬ	ʃ	x	xʷ	h
	voiced		z			ɣ	(ɣʷ)
Approximant			(r)	l	j		w

There are three series of stops and affricates: aspirated, unaspirated (written voiced in the practical orthography), and ejective.

/r/ is not native to the language but has been introduced by loans from French and English. /f/ occurs in a single loanword "coffee". The labialized voiced velar fricative /ɣʷ/ is found only in the speech of the most conservative speakers; for most speakers it has merged with /w/. The palatal nasal /ɲ/ occurs allophonically before other palatal consonants; otherwise, it occurs only in a small set of 2nd-person singular morphemes. For most speakers it has become an [n̩j] sequence, with a syllabic [n]. Similarly, the velar nasal /ŋ/ occurs allophonically before other velar consonants but is found distinctively in one or two morphemes in each dialect.

Vowels

Carrier has six surface-phonemic vowels: /i/, /u/, /e/, /o/, /a/, and /ʌ/. The first four are tense in open syllables and lax in closed syllables. The reduced vowel /ʌ/ is quite variable in its realization: it approaches [i] immediately preceding /j/ and approaches [a] when either or both adjacent consonants are laryngeal. Unlike in some related languages, there is no distinctive nasalization; that is, Carrier does not contrast oral and nasal vowels.

The great majority of instances of /ʌ/ are predictable from the phonotactics, introduced in order to create an acceptable syllable structure. The remaining instances are all found in certain forms of the verb where the morphology requires some vowel to be present.

In most if not all dialects there are surface-phonemic distinctions of vowel length. However, all of the long vowels that create such distinctions are morphophonemically derived. There is no need to represent vowel length in lexical representations.

Tone

Carrier has a very simple tone system of the type often described as pitch accent—it is in fact very similar to the prototypical pitch-accent language, Japanese. In Carrier, a word may or may not have a tonic syllable. If it does not, the pitch rises gradually across the phonological word. If it does have a tonic syllable, then that syllable has a high pitch, the following syllable downsteps to a low pitch, and subsequent syllables until the end of the prosodic unit are also low pitched. Any syllable in the word may carry the accent; if it is the final syllable, then the first syllable of the following word is low pitched, even if it would otherwise be tonic. Representing this phonemic drop in pitch with the downstep symbol ꜜ, there is a contrast between the surface tone following an unaccented word xoh "goose" compared with the accented word yesꜜ "wolf":

[xóh niɬʔén]

"He sees the goose."

[jésꜜ nìɬʔèn]

"He sees the wolf."

However, after a tonic syllable, the high pitch of yesꜜ "wolf" is lost:

[ʔiɬóꜜ jèsꜜ]

"One wolf"

Phonotactics

In general the Carrier syllable is maximally CVC. All consonants other than the extremely rare /ŋ/ are found in syllable-initial position. The possible coda consonants, on the other hand, are restricted. All of the sonorants except for the extremely rare palatal nasal may occur in the coda, but of the obstruents only the pulmonic unaspirated series occur. Affricates are not found in the coda with the exception of a few instances of /ts/. Palatals are also absent from the coda.

Word-internally consonant clusters occur only at the juncture between two syllables. Tautosyllablic clusters are found only word-initially, where any of the onset consonants may be preceded by /s/ or /ɬ/.

Nasals at all points of articulation are syllabic word-initially preceding a consonant.

Writing system

The writing system in general use today is the Carrier Linguistic Committee writing system, a Roman-based system developed in the 1960s by Summer Institute of Linguistics missionaries and a group of Carrier people with whom they worked. The CLC writing system was designed to be typed on a standard English typewriter. It uses numerous digraphs and trigraphs to write the many Carrier consonants not found in English, e.g. ⟨gh⟩ for [ɣ] and ⟨lh⟩ for [ɬ], with an apostrophe to mark glottalization, e.g. ⟨ts'⟩ for the ejective alveolar affricate. Letters generally have their English rather than European values. For example, ⟨u⟩ represents /ʌ/ while ⟨oo⟩ represents /u/.

The only diacritic it uses in its standard form is the underscore, which is written under ⟨s⟩, ⟨z⟩, ⟨ts⟩, and ⟨dz⟩ to indicate that the consonant is lamino-dental rather than apico-alveolar. An acute accent is sometimes used to mark high tone, but tone is not routinely written in Carrier.

A grave inscribed in Carrier Syllabics

Carrier was formerly written in a derivative of the Cree Syllabics known variously as the Carrier syllabics or Déné Syllabics. This writing system was widely used for several decades from its inception in 1885 but began to fade in the 1930s. Today only a few people can read it.

A good deal of scholarly material, together with the first edition of the "Little Catechism" and the Third Edition of the Prayerbook, is written in the writing system used by Father Adrien-Gabriel Morice in his scholarly work. This writing system is a somewhat idiosyncratic version of the phonetic transcription of the time. It is subphonemic and was never used by Carrier people themselves, though many learned to read the Prayerbook in it.

Morphology

Nouns

Carrier nouns are inflected for possession, including the person and number of the possessor. possession is marked by prefixation as well, in some cases, as changes in the noun stem. Number is marked only on nouns denoting human beings and dogs, and these distinguish only singular and plural. Some dialects of Carrier have no number distinctions in nouns at all.

A noun has six basic personal possessive forms:

Possessive Paradigm of stick

	sg	pl
1	/sdʌtʃʌn/	/nedʌtʃʌn/
2	/ndʌtʃʌn/	/nahdʌtʃʌn/
3	/udʌtʃʌn/	/bʌdʌtʃʌn/

Reading row-wise, these mean "my stick", "our stick", "your (1 person) stick", "your (two or more people) stick", "his/her/its stick", and "their stick".

However, in some dialects, such as that of Stony Creek, there is a distinction between first person dual and first person plural possessors:

Possessive Paradigm of stick (Stoney Creek dialect)

	sg	du	pl
1	/sdʌtʃʌn/	/nahdʌtʃʌn/	/nedʌtʃʌn/
2	/ndʌtʃʌn/	/nahdʌtʃʌn/	/nahdʌtʃʌn/
3	/udʌtʃʌn/	/hʌbʌdʌtʃʌn/	/hʌbʌdʌtʃʌn/

In such dialects, while the 1d and 1p are distinct, the 1d is the same as the 2dp.

There are five additional third person possessive forms:

Areal	/xwʌdʌtʃʌn/
Reflexive	/dʌdʌtʃʌn/
Disjoint	/jʌdʌtʃʌn/
Plural disjoint	/hidʌtʃʌn/
Reciprocal	/ɬdʌtʃʌn/

The areal form is used when the possessor is saliently areal, spatial, or an extent of time. The reflexive is used when the subject of the clause and the possessor are the same, whether singular or plural. The disjoint form is used when both subject and possessor are third person singular and are not the same. The plural disjoint form is used when the subject is third person plural, the possessor is third person singular, and the possessor is not one of the individuals in the subject group. The reciprocal form, meaning "each other's", was used into the early twentieth century but has since fallen out of use.

The twelfth possessive form is almost always found on inalienably possessed nouns. These are nouns that may not occur as words in their own right. In Carrier, the great majority of such nouns are either body parts or kinship terms. For example, although we can abstract the stem /ke/ from forms for "foot" such as /ske/ ('my foot'), /neke/ ('our feet'), and /uke/ ('his foot'), /ke/ by itself is not a word. It must either occur with a possessive prefix or as part of a compound, such as /kekˈetɬˈu/ ('sock'). To refer to an inalienably possessed noun without specifying its owner, the indefinite possessive prefix /ʔ/ is used. The approximate equivalent of "a foot" is therefore /ʔʌke/.

To describe alienable possession of an inalienably possessed noun, the regular possessive forms are used with the indefinite form as a base rather than the bare stem. Thus, to say "my foot" if the foot is not your own foot but is, for example, a rabbit's foot, you would say [seʔʌke]. (The fact that the vowel is [e] rather than [ʌ] is the result of a phonological rule that changes /ʌ/ to [e] immediately preceding /ʔ/ in noun prefixes and in the disjunct zone of the verb.)

Most Dakelh nouns do not have distinct singular and plural forms. How many items are under discussion may be inferred from context or may be specified by using a number or quantifier; otherwise, it remains ambiguous. With very limited exceptions, only nouns denoting human beings and dogs have distinct plural forms.

The most common way of forming the plural is by adding the suffix /-ne/. Thus, we have /dʌne/ "man", /dʌnene/ "men", /dakelh/ "Dakelh person", /dakelhne/ "Dakelh people".

Nouns derived from verbs by adding the suffix /-ʌn/ form their plurals by replacing /-ʌn/ with /-ne/. Thus we have /hodʌɬʔeh-ʌn/ "teacher", /hodʌɬʔeh-ne/ "teachers".

A smaller but nonetheless considerable number of nouns take the plural suffix /-ke/, e.g. /ɬi/ "dog", /ɬike/ "dogs". This is the usual way of making the plural of kinship terms, e.g. /nelu/ "our mother", /neluke/ "our mothers". The plural suffix /-ne/ is occasionally heard on kinship terms, but the suffix /-ke/ is more widely used and generally considered to be more correct. The plural of "dog" is invariably /ɬike/, never /ɬine/.

In addition, there are a handful of nouns with irregular plurals:

Singular	Plural	Gloss
ʔat	ʔatku	wife
tʃiɬ	tʃilke	young man
-tʃʌl	-tʃisle	younger brother
-dʌs	-dʌsneke	ancestor
kʼeke	kʼekuke	friend
tʼet	tʼedʌku	young woman
tsʼeke	tsʼeku	woman

/ʔat/ "wife" is also found with the more regular plural /ʔatke/. /tʼet/ is sometimes found with the double plural /tʼedʌkune/. /-dʌs/ "parent, ancestor" is also found with the undoubled plural /-dʌske/.

The exceptions to the statement that only nouns denoting human beings and dogs have distinct plurals are all nouns derived from verbs. The form of the underlying verb may vary with number in such a way as to create distinct number forms for the derived noun.

Where the deverbal noun is derived by means of the agentive suffix / -ʌn/ the verb is almost invariably in the third person singular form, which is to say, not marked for number. Plurality in these forms is normally marked only by the use of the duo-plural agentive suffix /-ne/ in place of singular /-ʌn/. Zero-derived agentive nouns may show plurality by means of subject markers. For example, "shaman" may be either /dʌjʌn-ʌn/, with an overt agentive suffix, but the zero-marked /dʌjʌn/ is more common. There are two plural forms: /dʌjʌn-ne/, with the duo-plural agentive suffix, and /hʌdʌjʌn/, in which the zero-marked form is based on the plural form of the verb.

There are two other cases in which the underlying verb may lead to a number distinction in the derived nouns. One is when the verb is restricted in the number of its absolutive argument. For example, there are two verbs "to kill", one that takes a singular or dual object, another that takes a strictly plural object. Since the word "prey" is derived from "kill", there are a singular-dual form /beˈdʌzʌlɡɣe-i/, based on the stem /-ɡhe/ "kill one or two" and a plural form /beˈdʌɣan-i/, based on the stem /ɣan/ "kill three or more".

The other case in which the underlying verb induces a number distinction in the derived noun is when the verb contains a prefix such as distributive /n/. For example, /nati/ "cross-road" has the duo-plural /nanʌti/. Similarly, /ˈʌdzatbeti/ "rabbit trail" has the duo-plural /ˈʌdzatbenʌti/. Such examples arise because the "noun" /ti/ "road, trail" is really a verb and takes the distributive prefix.

Even if a noun possesses a plural form, it is not necessary for it to take on the plural form in order to have a plural meaning. Indeed, there is a strong tendency to avoid overt marking of the plural if plurality is indicated in other ways, in particular, by an immediately following possessed noun. For example, the full form of "Dakelh language" is /dakeɬne bʌɣʌni/, literally "the words of the Dakelh people". Here /dakeɬne/ consists of /dakeɬ/ "Dakelh person with the plural suffix /-ne/, and /bʌɣʌni/ is the third person plural possessed form of /xʌni/ "words". The plurality of the possessor is indicated by the use of the third person duo-plural possessive prefix /bʌ/ instead of the third person singular /u/. The form /dakeɬ bʌɣʌni/, in which /dakeɬ/ is not overtly plural-marked, is much preferred.

Postpositions

Most postpositions are inflected for their object in a manner closely resembling the marking of possession on nouns. The inflected forms are used when the object is not a full noun phrase. Here is the paradigm of /ba/ "for":

Object Paradigm of for

	sg	pl
1	/sba/	/neba/
2	/mba/	/nohba/
3	/uba/	/bʌba/

Areal	/hʌba/
Reflexive	/dʌba/
Disjoint	/jʌba/
Plural disjoint	/hiba/
Reciprocal	/ɬba/

The postposition /be/ "by means of" is unusual in being uninflectable. At the other extreme, the postposition /ɬ/ "together with" is always inflected, even when its object is an overt noun phrase.

Whereas the reciprocal possessive form of nouns is obsolete, the reciprocal object of postpositions remains in common use. The form /ɬba/, for example, may be used in roughly the same contexts as the English phrase "for each other".

Verbs

The Carrier verb is extremely complex. A single verb may have hundreds of thousands of forms. Verbs are marked for the person and number of the subject, object, and indirect object, tense, mood, numerous aspectual categories, and negation. The subjects of verbs, and in some dialects objects and indirect objects, distinguish singular, dual, and plural numbers. Verbs are also marked for numerous "derivational" categories. For example, a basic motion verb, such as "walk" has derivatives meaning "walk into water", "walk into a hole", "walk ashore", "walk around" and "walk erroneously" (that is, "get lost walking").

The basic paradigm of a verb consists of three persons in three numbers, with the tenses and modes Imperfective, Perfective, Future, and Optative, in both affirmative and negative forms. Notice how the stem of the verb changes with tense/aspect/mode and negation, e.g. /ke/ in the Imperfective Affirmative but /koh/ in the Imperfective Negative and /ki/ in the Perfective Affirmative. In addition to the stem, the forms below contain the prefix /n/ "around, in a loop".

Go Around By Boat

Imperfective	Affirmative				Negative
	Singular	Dual	Plural		Singular	Dual	Plural
1	nʌske	nike	nʌts’ʌke		nʌɬʌzʌskoh	nʌɬʌzikoh	nʌɬts’ʌskoh
2	ninke	nahke	nahke		nʌɬʌzinkoh	nʌɬʌzahkoh	nʌɬʌzahkoh
3	nʌke	nʌhʌke	nʌhʌke		nʌɬʌskoh	nʌɬʌhʌskoh	nʌɬʌhʌskoh
Perfective	Affirmative				Negative
	Singular	Dual	Plural		Singular	Dual	Plural
1	nʌsʌski	nʌsiki	nʌts’ʌski		nʌɬʌskel	nʌɬikel	nʌɬts’ikel
2	nʌsinki	nʌsahki	nʌsahki		nʌɬinkel	nʌɬʌhkel	nʌɬʌhkel
3	nʌsʌki	nʌhʌzʌki	nʌhʌzʌki		nʌɬikel	nʌɬehikel	nʌɬehikel
Future	Affirmative				Negative
	Singular	Dual	Plural		Singular	Dual	Plural
1	nʌtiskeɬ	nʌtakeɬ	nʌztikeɬ		nʌɬtʌziskel	nʌɬtʌzakel	nʌɬts’ʌtiskel
2	nʌtankeɬ	nʌtihkeɬ	nʌtihkeɬ		nʌɬtʌzankel	nʌɬtʌzihkel	nʌɬtʌzihkel
3	nʌtikeɬ	notikeɬ	notikeɬ		nʌɬtʌziskel	nʌɬotiskel	nʌɬotiskel
Optative	Affirmative				Negative
	Singular	Dual	Plural		Singular	Dual	Plural
1	noskeʔ	nokeʔ	nʌts’ukeʔ		nʌɬʌzuskeʔ	nʌɬʌzokeʔ	nʌɬts’uskeʔ
2	nonkeʔ	nohkeʔ	nohkeʔ		nʌɬʌzonkeʔ	nʌɬʌzuhkeʔ	nʌɬʌzuhkeʔ
3	nokeʔ	nʌhukeʔ	nʌhukeʔ		nʌɬuskeʔ	nʌɬʌhuskeʔ	nʌɬʌhuskeʔ

Carrier has multiple systems of noun classification,^[2] several of which are realized on the verb. One of these, the system of absolutive or gender classifiers, consists of the prefixes /n/, /d/, and /xʷ/, which indicate that the absolutive argument (the subject of an intransitive verb or the object of a transitive verb) is round, stick-like, or areal/spatial, respectively. Some verbs can take any or none of these prefixes. Others can take only a subset or none at all. For example, the verb "to be white" has the forms:

ɬjʌl	it (generic) is white
nʌljʌl	it (round) is white
dʌljʌl	it (stick-like) is white
xʷʌljʌl	it (areal/spatial) is white

Syntax

In general terms, Carrier is a head-final language: the verb comes at the end of the clause, adpositions are postpositions rather than prepositions, and complementizers follow their clause. However, it is not consistently head-final: in head-external relative clauses, the relative clause follows the head noun. Carrier has both head-internal and head-external relative clauses. The subject usually precedes the object if one is present.

Carrier is an "everything drop" language. A verb can form a grammatical sentence by itself. It is not in general necessary for the subject or object to be expressed overtly by a noun phrase or pronoun.

Semantics

Scope phenomena

Verb-internal negation has low scope, meaning that, with certain exceptions, the scope of negation is restricted to the verb itself. Thus, a sentence like:

[ɬeʔzʌstʼʌt] "I am not smoking (unspecified object)"

is acceptable since the object marker (underlyingly just /ʔ/, with epenthetic /ʌ/ changed to [e] because it immediately precedes /ʔ/ in the disjunct zone) is part of the verb, but

[dekʼa ɬʌzʌstʼʌt] "I am not smoking tobacco"

is bizarre because the object /dekʼa/ "tobacco" is a separate noun phrase. The bizarreness results from the fact that the negative morphology of the verb does not have scope over the NP object. In order to bring the object within the scope of negation, it must follow the negative particle /ʔaw:

/ʔaw dekʼa ɬʌzʌstʼʌt/ "I am not smoking tobacco"

Classification

Carrier is generally regarded as one of three members of the central British Columbia subgroup of Athabascan, the other two being Babine-Witsuwit'en and Chilcotin. As noted above, the term "Carrier" has often been applied to both Carrier proper and Babine-Witsuwit'en but this identification is now rejected by specialists.^[3][4][5] The Ethnologue treats Carrier proper as consisting of two languages, Carrier (code: crx) and Southern Carrier (code: caf), where the latter consists of the dialects of the Ulkatcho, Kluskus, Nazko, and Red Bluff bands. More recent research disputes the treatment of "Southern Carrier" as a distinct language and in fact classifies this dialect group as one of two parts of a larger "Southern Carrier" dialect group that contains all of Carrier proper except for the Stuart/Trembleur Lake dialect. Southern Carrier in the sense of the Ethnologue, that is, the Blackwater dialect group, is mutually comprehensible with all other Carrier dialects.

Dialects

Current research divides Carrier into two major dialect groups, a Stuart-Trembleur Lake group, and a Southern group. The Southern group, in turn, is divided into two subgroups, the Fraser-Nechako group, comprising the communities of Cheslatta, Stellako, Nadleh, Saik'uz, and Lheidli, and the Blackwater group, comprising the communities of Lhk'acho (Ulgatcho), Lhoosk'uz (Kluskus), Nazko, and Lhtakoh (Red Bluff).^[6]

The Carrier Region

Much of the literature distinguishes Central Carrier from Southern Carrier. Unfortunately, the usage of these terms is quite variable. Almost all material in or about Central Carrier is in the Stuart Lake dialect. However, Central Carrier cannot be taken to be a synonym for Stuart-Trembleur Lake dialect because some of the more northerly of the Southern Carrier dialects, particularly Saik'uz dialect, are sometimes included in Central Carrier.

Although all speakers of all varieties of Carrier can communicate with each other with little difficulty, the dialects are quite diverse. They differ from each other not only in phonological details and lexicon but in morphology and even syntax.

Contact with other languages

Carrier is neighbored on the west by Babine-Witsuwit'en and Haisla, to the north by Sekani, to the southeast by Shuswap, to the south by Chilcotin, and to the southwest by Nuxalk. Furthermore, in the past few centuries, with the westward movement of the Plains Cree, there has been contact with the Cree from the East. Carrier has borrowed from some of these languages, but apparently not in large numbers. Loans from Cree include [mʌsdus] ('cow') from Cree (which originally meant "buffalo" but extended to "cow" already in Cree) and [sunija] ('money, precious metal'). There are also loans from languages that do not directly neighbor Carrier territory. A particularly interesting example is [maj] ('berry, fruit'), a loan from Gitksan, which has been borrowed into all Carrier dialects and has displaced the original Athabascan word.

Carrier and the neighbouring languages

European contact has brought loans from a number of sources. The majority of demonstrable loans into Carrier are from French, though it is not generally clear whether they come directly from French or via Chinook Jargon. Loans from French include [liɡok] ('chicken') (from French le coq 'rooster'), [lisel] (from le sel 'salt'), and [lizas] ('angel'). As these examples show, the French article is normally incorporated into the Carrier borrowing. A single loan from Spanish is known: [mandah] ('canvas, tarpaulin'), apparently acquired from Spanish-speaking packers.

The trade language Chinook Jargon came into use among Carrier people as a result of European contact. Most Carrier people never knew Chinook Jargon. It appears to have been known in most areas primarily by men who had spent time freighting on the Fraser River. Knowledge of Chinook Jargon may have been more common in the southwestern part of Carrier country due to its use at Bella Coola. The southwestern dialects have more loans from Chinook Jargon than other dialects. For example, while most dialects use the Cree loan described above for "money", the southwestern dialects use [tʃikʌmin], which is from Chinook Jargon. The word [daji] ('chief') is a loan from Chinook Jargon.

European contact brought many new objects and ideas. The names for some were borrowed, but in most cases terms have been created using the morphological resources of the language, or by extending or shifting the meaning of existing terms. Thus, [tɬʼuɬ] now means not only "rope" but also "wire", while [kʼa] has shifted from its original meaning of "arrow" to mean "cartridge" and [ʔʌɬtih] has shifted from "bow" to "rifle". [hutʼʌp], originally "leeches" now also means "pasta". A microwave oven is referred to as [ʔa benʌlwʌs] ('that by means of which things are warmed quickly'). "Mustard" is [tsʼudʌnetsan] ('children's feces'), presumably after the texture and color rather than the flavor.

Status

Like most of the languages of British Columbia, Carrier is an endangered language. Only about 10% of Dakelh people now speak the Carrier language, hardly any of them children. Members of the generation following that of the last speakers can often understand the language but they do not contribute to its transmission.

Carrier is taught as a second language in both public and band schools throughout Carrier territory. This instruction provides an acquaintance with the language but has not proven effective in producing functional knowledge of the language. Carrier has also been taught at the University of Northern British Columbia, the College of New Caledonia, and the University of British Columbia.

The Yinka Dene Language Institute (YDLI) is charged with the maintenance and promotion of Carrier language and culture. Its activities include research, archiving, curriculum development, teacher training, literacy instruction, and production of teaching and reference materials. Prior to the founding of YDLI in 1988 the Carrier Linguistic Committee, a group based in Fort Saint James affiliated with the Summer Institute of Linguistics, produced a number of publications in Carrier, literacy materials for several dialects, a 3000-entry dictionary of the Stuart Lake dialect,^[7] and various other materials. The Carrier Linguistic Committee is largely responsible for literacy among younger speakers of the language. The Carrier Bible Translation Committee produced a translation of the New Testament that was published in 1995.^[8] An adaptation to Blackwater dialect appeared in 2002.^[9]

Place names in Carrier

Here are the Carrier names for some of the major places in Carrier territory, written in the Carrier Linguistic Committee writing system:

• Mount Pope – Nak'al
• Fort St. James – Nak'azdli
• Stuart Lake – Nak'albun
• Stuart River – Nak'alkoh
• Fraser Lake – Nadlehbun
• Nautley River – Nadlehkoh
• Endako River – Ndakoh
• Stellako River – Stellakoh
• Tachie River – Duzdlikoh
• Nechako River – Nechakoh
• Fraser River – Lhtakoh
• Babine Lake – Nadobun
• Burns Lake – Tselhk'azkoh
• Francois Lake – Nedabun
• Cluculz Lake – Lhoohk'uz

Attestation

The earliest record of the language consists of a list of 25 words recorded^[10] by Alexander MacKenzie on June 22, 1793.^[11] This is followed by a few Carrier words mentioned in the journal of Simon Fraser for the year 1806 and by a list of over 300 words given in an appendix to his journal by Daniel Harmon, published in 1820. The first known text by native speakers of Carrier is the Barkerville Jail Text of 1885.

See also

• Babine-Witsuwit'en

References

1. ^ Walker, Richard (1979) "Central Carrier Phonemics," in Eric P. Hamp et al. (eds.) Contributions to Canadian Linguistics. Ottawa: National Museums of Canada. pp. 93–107.
2. ^ Poser, William J. (2005) "Noun Classification in Carrier". Anthropological Linguistics 47.2.143-168.
3. ^ Kari, James (1975) "Babine, a New Athabaskan Linguistic Grouping," ms. Alaska Native Language Center, Fairbanks, Alaska.
4. ^ Story, Gillian L. (1984) Babine and Carrier Phonology: A Historically Oriented Study. Arlington, Texas: Summer Institute of Linguistics.
5. ^ Kari, James and Sharon Hargus (1989) "Dialectology, Ethnonymy and Prehistory in the Northwest Portion of the `Carrier' Language Area," ms. Alaska Native Language Center, Fairbanks, Alaska, and University of Washington, Seattle, Washington.
6. ^ http://www.ydli.org/dakinfo/dialects.htm
7. ^ Antoine, Francesca, Bird, Catherine, Isaac, Agnes, Prince, Nellie, Sam, Sally, Walker, Richard, and David B. Wilkinson (1974) Central Carrier Bilingual Dictionary. Fort Saint James, British Columbia: Carrier Linguistic Committee.
8. ^ Carrier Bible Translation Committee. 1995.Yak'usda Ooghuni: 'Andidi Khuni Neba Lhaidinla-i. Colorado Springs, Colorado: International Bible Society.
9. ^ Carrier Bible Translation Committee. 2002.Yak'usda Bughunek: K'andit Khunek Neba Lhaidinla. Wycliffe Bible Translators.
10. ^ Mackenzie, Alexander (1801) Voyages from Montreal on the River St. Laurence, through the Continent of North America to the Frozen and Pacific Oceans: In the Years 1789 and 1793. London. Edited by Milo Milton Quaife and reissued at Chicago by the Lakeside Press, 1931.
11. ^ Poser, William J. 2004. "The first record of the Carrier language" in Gary Holton and Siri Tuttle (eds.) Working Papers in Athabaskan Languages. Fairbanks: Alaska Native Language Center. Working Papers #4.

Bibliography

(A full bibliography is available at: http://www.ydli.org/biblios/lingbib.htm.)

• Antoine, Francesca, Bird, Catherine, Isaac, Agnes, Prince, Nellie, Sam, Sally, Walker, Richard, and David B. Wilkinson (1974) Central Carrier Bilingual Dictionary. Fort Saint James, British Columbia: Carrier Linguistic Committee.
• Cook, Eung-Do (1976) A Phonological Study of Chilcotin and Carrier. Report to the National Museum on Contract No. E10-75-8. Part II: Central Carrier Phonology.
• Morice, Adrien-Gabriel (1932) The Carrier Language. Mödling bei Wien, St. Gabriel, Austria: Verlag der Internationalen Zeitschrift "Anthropos".
• Poser, William J. (1998) Nak'albun/Dzinghubun Whut'enne Bughuni (Stuart/Trembleur Lake Carrier Lexicon). Vanderhoof, BC: Yinka Dene Language Institute. Second edition.
• Poser, William J. (2000) Saik'uz Whut'en Hubughunek (Stoney Creek Carrier Lexicon). Vanderhoof, BC: Saik'uz First Nation. Fourth edition. (March 2000)
• Poser, William J. (2005) "Noun Classification in Carrier". Anthropological Linguistics 47.2.143-168. prepublication version
• Poser, William J. (2009) The Carrier Language: a Brief Introduction. Prince George, British Columbia: College of New Caledonia Press. ISBN 978-0-921087-45-8.
• Story, Gillian L. (1984) Babine and Carrier Phonology: A Historically Oriented Study. Arlington, Texas: Summer Institute of Linguistics.
• Walker, Richard (1979) "Central Carrier Phonemics," in Eric P. Hamp et al. (eds.) Contributions to Canadian Linguistics. Ottawa: National Museums of Canada. pp. 93–107.
• Yinka Dene Language Institute "Dialects"

External links

• The Yinka Dene Language Institute Website contains extensive information about the Carrier language and other First Nations languages of British Columbia.
• The Carrier Sekani Tribal Council represents many of the Carrier bands. Its web site contains information about the tribe and about current political issues.
• Map of Northwest Coast First Nations Note, however, that the Carrier-speaking region is marked incorrectly on this map. The area around Babine Lake and Takla Lake, included in the Dakelh region on the map, is actually Babine speaking. A correct map would attach the Babine and Takla Lake areas to what is shown on this map as "Wet'suwet'en" and label the combination "Babine-Witsuwit'en".
• Ethnologue entry
• Words from the west (Language Log)