Hän language

Hän
Häɬ goɬan
Spoken in	Canada, United States
Region	Yukon, Alaska
Ethnicity	Hän people
Native speakers	10  (date missing)
Language family	Dené–Yeniseian Na-Dené Athabaskan Northern Athabaskan Hän
Writing system	Latin (Dené alphabet)
Language codes
ISO 639-3	haa
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 Hän language (Dawson, Han-Kutchin, Moosehide) is a Native American endangered language spoken in only two places: Eagle, Alaska and Dawson City, Yukon. There are only a few fluent speakers left (perhaps about 10), all of them elderly.

It is a member of the Athabaskan language family, which is part of the larger Na-Dené family. The name of the language is derived from the name of the people, "Hän Hwëch'in", which in the language means "people who live along the river", the river being the Yukon. There are currently efforts to revive the language locally.

Phonology

Consonants

The consonants of Hän in the standard orthography are listed below (with IPA notation in brackets):

		Bilabial	Interdental	Alveolar		Postalveolar	Retroflex	Velar	Glottal
				central	lateral
Stop	voiceless	b  [p]		d  [t]				g  [k]	’  [ʔ]
	aspirated	(p)  [pʰ]		t  [tʰ]				k  [kʰ]
	ejective			t’  [tʼ]				k’  [kʼ]
Affricate	voiceless		ddh  [tθ]	dz  [ts]	dl  [tɬ]	dj  [tʃ]	dr  [ʈʂ]
	aspirated		tth  [tθʰ]	ts  [tsʰ]	tl  [tɬʰ]	ch  [tʃʰ]	tr  [ʈʂʰ]
	ejective		tth’  [tθʼ]	ts’  [tsʼ]	tl’  [tɬʼ]	ch’  [tʃʼ]	tr’  [ʈʂʼ]
Fricative	voiced		dh  [ð]	z  [z]	l  [ɮ]	zh  [ʒ]	zr  [ʐ]	gh  [ɣ]
	voiceless		th  [θ]	s  [s]	ł  [ɬ]	sh  [ʃ]	sr  [ʂ]	kh  [x]	h  [h]
Nasal	voiced	m  [m]		n  [n]
	voiceless			nh  [n̥]
	voiced stop	mb  [ᵐb]		nd  [ⁿd]
	voiced affricate					nj  [ⁿd͡ʒ]
Approximant	voiced	w  [w]			l  [l]	y  [j]	r  [ɻ]
	voiceless	wh  [ʍ]				yh  [ȷ̊]	rh  [ɻ̥]

Vowels

• short
  • a [a]
  • ä [ɑ]
  • e [e]
  • ë [ə]
  • i [i]
  • o [o]
  • u [u]
• long
  • aa [aː]
  • ää [ɑː]
  • ee [eː]
  • ëë [əː]
  • ii [iː]
  • oo [oː]
  • uu [uː]
• diphthongs
  • aw [au]
  • ay [ai]
  • äw [ɑu]
  • ew [eu]
  • ey [ei]
  • iw [iu]
  • oy [oi]
• nasal vowels are marked by an ogonek accent, e.g., ą
• low tone is marked with a grave accent, e.g., à
• rising tone is marked with a circumflex accent, e.g., â^{[citation needed]}
• falling tone is marked with a caron (or háček), e.g., ǎ^{[citation needed]}
• high tone is never marked, e.g., a

External links

• Hän alphabet
• Han (ANLC)
• Ethnologue: Han

Bibliography

• Alaska Native Language Center. Alaska Native Language Center website: http://www.uaf.edu/anlc/ (accessed July 24, 2005).
• Gordon, Raymond G., Jr. (Ed.). (2005). Ethnologue: Languages of the world (15th ed.). Dallas, TX: SIL International. ISBN 1-55671-159-X. (Online version: http://www.ethnologue.com).
• Mithun, Marianne. (1999). The languages of Native North America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-23228-7 (hbk); ISBN 0-521-29875-X.