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x̱at'ee, x̱aaydaG̱aay, Kasaan, or K’iis Xaat’aagang – Haida Language

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The Xaadas people's language is spoken on the Queen Charlotte Islands in British Columbia, as well as in the extreme southern portion of Alaska on Prince Wales Island.

The word for Haida in the northern, Massett dialect is x̱at'ee. In the southern, Skidegate dialect, Haida is x̱aaydaG̱aay. The people of Alaska speak either a northwestern dialect (with some features shared with Skidgate), and call themselves K’iis Xaat’aagang; or the Northeastern dialect (similar to Masset), Kasaan. In the charts below, it is my understanding that all the northern dialects have the same sounds. Information on K’iis Xaat’aagang and Kasaan was kindly provided by Kawan Sangaa of Hydaburg.

Historically, there have been many writing systems, and also others invented by linguists or scholars, I will try to include them all as I learn about them. In Canada, a modification of the Enrico system is popular, while in the U.S., the Alaska Native Language Center (or ANLC) has developed a different system. Note that in the B.C. system, words are not capitalised – ‹G̱› is caseless, and in Massett, ‹g›~‹G› and ‹x›~‹X› are different sounds.

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.

According to the 1990 U.S. Census, there are 110 Haida speakers in the United States.

The Canadian Census counts 190 Haida speakers in 2006, down from from 275 in 2001. Although Krauss (1997) gives the numbers of speakers as 15 and 30 respectively.

 

Community Names:

Kaigani - K’ayk’aanii
Masset - g̱adag̱aax̱iwaas
Skidgate - hlG̱agilda

Northern (Masset) Dialect – Consonants
  bilabial alveolar lateral palato-alveolar velar uvular pharyngeal glottal
voiceless stop b d dl j g G g̱ 7
aspirated stop p t tl ts k ḵ g̱  
ejective stop p' t' tl' ts' k' ḵ'    
voiceless fricative     hl s x X x̱ h
nasal m n     ng      
glottalised nasal 'm 'n            
resonant w   l y        
glottalised resonant 'w   'l 'y        

Northern (Masset) Dialect – Vowels

  front central back
high i - ii   u - uu
mid ee   oo
low   a - aa  

Notes:

  1. There is a consistant correspondance between pharyngeal ‹g̱› and ‹x̱› in northern dialects, and uvular ‹G̱› and ‹x̱› in Skidegate. However, the northern dialects do have some rare occasions where it has borrowed in uvular sounds, which are written with capitals in B.C., and with a circumflex accent in Alaska. This is the explanation as provided by Ways of Writing Haida. In Eastman (1991:6), who on the whole uses the ANLC orthography, ‹G› and ‹X› are typographical compromises of ANLC ‹g̱› and ‹x̱›.
  2. Great care must be taken in computing with the Massett orthography as ‹G› and ‹X› are not treated as separate sounds from ‹g› and ‹x› by software.

Alaska Orthography – Consonants
  bilabial alveolar lateral palato-alveolar velar uvular pharyngeal glottal
voiceless stop b d dl j g ĝ g̱ ’
aspirated stop p t tl ch / ts2 k ḵ    
ejective stop p’ t’ tl’ ts’ k’ ḵ’    
voiceless fricative     hl s x x̂ x̱ h
nasal m n     ng      
glottalised nasal ’m ’n            
resonant w   l y        
glottalised resonant ’w   ’l ’y        

The Alaska Orthography – Vowels

  front central back
high i - ii   u - uu
mid ei    
low   a - aa  

Notes:

  1. There is a consistant correspondance between pharyngeal ‹g̱› and ‹x̱› in northern dialects, and uvular ‹G̱› and ‹x̱› in Skidegate. However, the northern dialects do have some rare occasions where it has borrowed in uvular sounds, which are written with capitals in B.C., and with a circumflex accent in Alaska. This is the explanation as provided by Ways of Writing Haida. In Eastman (1991:6), who on the whole uses the ANLC orthography, ‹G› and ‹X› are typographical compromises of ANLC ‹g̱› and ‹x̱›.
  2. ‹ch› is written at the beginning of a syllable, ‹ts› at the end.
  3. The ANLC uses a hyphen to break up diagraphs. So while ‹ng› or ‹p’› are single sounds, in ‹n-g› the /n/ and /g/ are pronounced separately, same with ‹p-’› for /p/ plus /’/.

Skidegate Orthography – Consonants
  bilabial alveolar lateral palato-alveolar velar uvular glottal
voiceless stop b d dl j g G̱ 7
aspirated stop p t tl ch k ḵ  
ejective stop   t' tl' ts' k' ḵ'  
voiceless fricative     hl s x x̱ h
nasal m n     ng    
glottalised nasal 'm 'n          
resonant w   l y      
glottalised resonant 'w   'l 'y      

Skidegate Orthography – Vowels

  front central back
high i - ii   u - uu
mid ee a/i/l oo
low   a - aa  

Notes:

  1. The capital letter G is used when underlined (uvular voiceless stop) ‹G̱›. I believe this decision was made because in old font technology, it was difficult to get the underline positioned properly under ‹g›. Although this is not a barrier any longer, the orthography remains. Care should be taken when using computer software which may confuse the case of the letters g and G̱ – although this should not cause any misreadings, as one will remain underlined.
  2. Occasionally, tone may be written to disambiguate to otherwise identical words. Low tone is written with a gràve accent, and high tone with an acúte.
  3. The reduced vowel “schwa” is written either ‹a›, ‹i›, or ‹l› depending on the preceding letter:
    • After {j, ts, ts’, s}, schwa is written ‹i›, ‹ki› is pronounced /ki/, but ‹ji› is /jə/.
    • After {dl, tl, tl’, hl, l ’l}, schwa is written ‹l›, ‹tll› is pronounced /tlə/.
    • After any other consonant (except for {w, ’w, y, ’y}), schwa is written ‹a›, ‹wa› is pronounced /wa/, but ‹ga› is /gə/.
 

The Bringhurst Orthography – Southern (Skidgate) Dialect – Consonantsts
  bilabial alveolar lateral palato-alveolar velar uvular pharyngeal glottal
voiceless stop b d dl j g gh ‘ ’
aspirated stop   t tl ts k q    
ejective stop   tt ttl tts kk qq    
voiceless fricative     hl s x xh   h
nasal m n     ng      
glottalised nasal (mm) (nn)            
resonant w   l y        
glottalised resonant (ww)   ll (yy)        

The Bringhurst Orthography – Vowels

  front central back
high i / ii   u / uu
low   a / aa  

Notes:

  • From Bringhurst (1999:418-419). Notice that this orthography does not have long /ee/, marked accent, or the pharyngeal fricative. That the pharyngeal is missing is because Bringhurst designed his orthography for the southern dialect, but did include ‹‘› to represent the pharyngeal stop “on the few occasions where I wanted to distinguish northern from southern gh” (1999:416). The glottalised nasals and resonants (except for ll) are shown here in parentheses as they do not appear in the “Appendix 1: Haida Spelling and Pronunciation” (1999:415-416) chart, although he does allude to their existence later in the Appendix. A mid-level dot is used to separate digraphs, so l·l is /l/ + /l/, not /’l/.
 

The Swanton Orthography (Skidegate Dialect) – Consonants
  bilabial alveolar lateral palato-alveolar velar uvular pharyngeal glottal
voiceless stop b d ʟ. dj g g. ‘  
aspirated stop (p) t ʟ tc k q    
ejective stop   t! ʟ! tc! k! q!    
voiceless fricative     ł s x. x   h
nasal m n     ng      
resonant w   l          
glottalised resonant     l’          

The Swanton Orthography – Vowels

  front central back
high i (e ê î) / ī   u (o) / ū (ō)
mid ē ᴀ  
low   a (ä â e) / ā  

Notes:

  1. As can be seen, Swanton's orthography was quite over elaborate on vowels, but misses a few consonants, like the glottal stop and the glottalised resonants. He did differentiate between the pharyngeal stop and its uvular counterpart, but merely hinted that “in the Masset dialect; x is also pronounced softer, more like h.” Swanton (1905:6)

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Last Update: June 13, 2005