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ᑕᗸᒡ Dakelh – (Carrier) Language

Syllabics Keyboards are available

Roman Keyboards are available

The Dakelh language is spoken in a large territory in central British Columbia, from Stewart lake in the north to the area around the city of Quesnel in the south-east. There are two major dialects: Central, and Southern, both of which will be covered on this page. Witsuwit’en-Nedut’en (Northern or Western Carrier) is occasionally classified as a dialect of Carrier, but this site will list it as a separate language.

The traditional orthography of the Carrier languages is syllabics introduced by A.-G. Morice in 1885 at Stuart Lake (Central dialect). His desire to redesign syllabics was in response to the difficulties in writing Dene langauges in Algonquian based orthographical systems, which have fewer consonant sounds. Currently, there is also a Roman orthography in use. Below the Roman orthography is used to exemplify pronunciation. For the syllabics, please see the link to the right.

Note: There are several Roman Orthography conventions on this site that may require further explanation. On the charts below, there is lots of phonetic terminology that may not be familiar to everyone.

This page uses no characters outside the Unicode standard.

 

Dakelh Syllabics Information:

The Canadian Census counts 2,490 Carrier speakers in 2006, up from from 2,055 in 2001. These figures likely include Wet’suwet’en-Nat’ooten as well. According to Howe and Cook, there are 1,250 Carrier/Dakelh speakers.

 

Community Names

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Central Carrier Roman Orthography: Consonants

  bilabial dental affricate alveolar alveolar affricate lateral palato-alveolar palatal velar velar rounded glottal
voiceless stop
b
d̲z̲
d
dz
dl
j
 
g
gw
’
aspirated stop
(p)
t̲s̲
t
ts
tl
ch
 
k
kw
 
ejective stop
 
t̲s̲’
t’
ts’
tl’
ch’
 
k’
kw’
 
voiced fricative
 
z̲
 
z
 
 
 
gh
ghw
 
voiceless fricative
(f)
s̲
 
s
lh
sh
 
kh
wh
h
nasal
m
 
n
 
 
 
ny
ng
 
 
resonant
 
 
(r)
 
l
 
y
 
w
 

Central Carrier Roman Orthography: Vowels

  front central back
high
i
 
oo
mid
e
u
o
low
 
a
 

Notes:

  • This chart is based on the speech of conservative speakers from Poser (2003). Many speakers may have /n/+/y/ instead of /ny/. Thus ‘your land’ is /n-yun/ (two syllables) but ‘you’ is /nyun/ (one syllable). /ny/ is used only when indicating a second person singular.
  • Some older speakers retain /ghw/, for others, it has merged with /w/.
  • Sounds in parentheses are found only in loan words.
  • I have read conflicting reports as to whether there is phonemic (grammatical) tone in Carrier.

Southern Carrier Roman Orthography: Consonants

  bilabial alveolar alveolar affricate lateral palato-alveolar palatal velar velar rounded glottal
voiceless stop
b
d
dz
dl
j
 
g
gw
’
aspirated stop
(p)
t
ts
tl
ch
 
k
kw
 
ejective stop
 
t’
ts’
tl’
ch’
 
k’
kw’
 
voiced fricative
 
 
z
 
 
 
gh
 
 
voiceless fricative
(f)
 
s
lh
sh
 
kh
wh
h
nasal
m
n
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
resonant
 
(r)
 
l
 
y
 
w
 

Southern Carrier Roman Orthography: Vowels

  front central back
high
i
 
oo
mid
e
u
o
low
 
a
 

Notes:

  • Southern Carrier differs from the Central dialect in that it does not have the dental affricate series of sounds. There is no /ng/, /ghw/, or /ny/.
  • Sounds in parentheses are found only in loan words.
  • I have read conflicting reports as to whether there is phonemic (grammatical) tone in Carrier.
Home Previous Page Last Update: Friday, August 18, 2006