Tahltan language

Tahltan is a poorly documented Northern Athabaskan language historically spoken by the Tahltan people (also "Nahanni") who live in northern British Columbia around Telegraph Creek, Dease Lake, and Iskut. Some linguists consider Tahltan to be a language with 3 divergent but mutually intelligible dialects (Mithun 1999). The numbers below are according to Poser (2003):
* Tahltan "(approximately 35 speakers)"
* Kaska "(approximately 400 speakers)"
* Tagish "(approximately 2 speakers)"

Other linguists consider these to be separate languages.

ounds

Consonants

The 45 consonants of Tahltan:

Vowels

Phonological processes

* Vowel flattening.
* Consonant harmony
* Vowel nasalization
* Vowel laxing

References

* Cook, Eung-Do. (1972). Stress and related rules in Tahltan. "International Journal of American Linguistics", "38", 231-233.
* Gafos, Adamantios. (1999). "The articulatory basis of locality in phonology". New York: Garland Publishing, Inc. ISBN 0-8153-3286-6. (Revised version of the author's Doctoral dissertation, Johns Hopkins University).
* Hardwick, Margaret F. (1984). Tahltan phonology and morphology. (Unpublished M.A. thesis, University of Toronto, Ontario).
* Mithun, Marianne. (1999). "The languages of Native North America". Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-23228-7 (hbk); ISBN 0-521-29875-X.
* Nater, Hank. (1989). Some comments on the phonology of Tahltan. "International Journal of American Linguistics", "55", 25-42.
* Poser, William J. (2003). The status of documentation for British Columbia native languages. Yinka Dene Language Institute Technical Report (No. 2). Vanderhoof, British Columbia: Yinka Dene Language Institute.
* Shaw, Patricia. (1991). Consonant harmony systems: The special status of coronal harmony. In C. Paradis & J.-F. Prunet (Eds.), "Phonetics and phonology 2, the special status of coronals: Internal and external evidence" (pp. 125-155). London: Academic Press.