The Tanacross Writing System

A guide to the orthography used in this dictionary — including the history of Tanacross writing, pronunciation of consonants and vowels, tone, and nasalization.

Contents

Background
History
Pronunciation Guide
References

Background

Although the Tanacross language has been spoken for many generations, systems for writing the language have only recently emerged. The writing system, or orthography, used here follows that developed in the 1990s by the Yukon Native Language Centre and the Alaska Native Language Center, as exemplified in Irene Solomon-Arnold's Tanacross Language Lessons (1994) and Tanacross Phrases and Conversations (2003).

The writing system makes use of many of the symbols in the English alphabet, supplemented by one special character (the "barred-l" ł) and several diacritic marks, including a nasal "hook" below vowels and four kinds of tone marks above vowels: high tone é, rising tone ě, falling tone ê, and extra-high tone é́. It is perfectly possible — and permissible — to write Tanacross without tone marks, as speakers will generally be able to supply the correct tone. However, tone marks have been included in this dictionary to assist language learners.

Many Tanacross sounds are represented by more than one alphabetic letter or symbol; both individual letters such as s and letter combinations such as sh are referred to here as "letters."

The Tanacross writing system is much more faithful to the spoken word than English. Most Tanacross letters or letter combinations have a consistent pronunciation — though the sound associated with a given letter may not be the same as in English. For example, Tanacross ee has the sound of English "say," not English "see."

Many of the words and example sentences in this dictionary are accompanied by audio recordings demonstrating pronunciation. For additional information, please consult The Sounds of Tanacross.

History

Many different practical orthographies have been used to write Tanacross in pedagogical and linguistic publications. Leer (1982) recognizes three distinct phases. The first is exemplified by Nancy McRoy's work in the early 1970s (cf. McRoy 1973). The second is exemplified in the work of Ron Scollon later in the same decade (Scollon 1979; Paul 1980). The third is exemplified by Leer's work with Alice Brean in the early 1980s. Kari's system represents a fourth stage chronologically, though it is in many ways a hybrid of the second and third (Kari 1991a, 1991b). A fifth stage is exemplified by publications of the Yukon Native Language Centre (Solomon 1994, 1996; Isaac 1997) and the Alaska Native Language Center (Arnold 2003), incorporating the stage-three changes plus five types of vowel tone marking. This system is employed in most current Tanacross work, including this dictionary.

Pronunciation Guide

By far the best way to learn Tanacross pronunciation is to hear the language spoken — either by a native speaker in person, or via the recordings on this site. The following description gives an overview of the sounds associated with the symbols used in the writing system.

Sounds written and pronounced as in English

A number of letters and letter combinations have roughly the same pronunciation as in English.

Consonant	Example	Meaning	Similar English sound
ch	chox	big	choke
t	tuu	water	too
s	saa	sun	son
h	hên	creek	hen
m	menh	lake	men
n	nah'ôg	outside	now
sh	sheen	summer	she
th	thiit	embers	thin
y	yaadiimeey	northern lights	yell
k	kón'	fire	key
l	laalêel	butterfly	look
j	jeyh	mittens	jay
w	wudzih	caribou	woo

Some symbols represent sounds which occur in English but are not found at the beginning of a word. In Tanacross these sounds can occur word-initially.

Consonant	Example	Meaning	Similar English sound
ts	tsá'	beaver	cats
dz	dzeen	day	adze
dl	dlêg	squirrel	padlock
nd	ndiîig	creek	candy

Sounds spelled differently than in English

Consonant	Example	Meaning	Similar English sound
dh	nadh'aay	bucket	this

Sounds not found in English

Consonant	Example	Meaning
ł	łii	dog
tl	tłęę	friend
tth	tthee	rock
ddh	ddheł	mountain
x	xos	thorns
gh	gha	for
nh	menh	lake
yh	aayh	snowshoe

One very noticeable set of sounds not found in English are the ejective (glottalized) consonants, a feature of all Athabascan languages. When an apostrophe follows certain consonants, it indicates a glottalization — a "catch-in-the-breath" sound formed by using closed vocal chords to compress air in the vocal tract.

Consonant	Example	Meaning
tl'	tl'uuł	rope
tth'	tth'éex	sinew
t'	t'aath	cottonwood
k'	k'á'	gun
ts'	ts'eyh	canoe
ch'	ch'ox	quills

The apostrophe and the hyphen

The apostrophe ( ' ) has a special meaning in the Tanacross alphabet. By itself it indicates a glottal stop — the sound which occurs in the middle of the English exclamation uh-oh. Sometimes it is necessary to indicate that a glottal stop is not part of the previous letter. In this case, a hyphen (-) is used as a separator. For example, nek-'ęh 'I see' must be written with a hyphen because it does not contain a glottalized k (k').

The underscore

The underscore ( _ ) is used in combination with certain letters to indicate that a sound begins voiceless and becomes voiced as it is pronounced.

Consonant	Example	Meaning
ł	wułǐg'	his dog
s	wusêeg'	his saliva
th	thét	liver
sh	shíi	in
x	xdelxos	they are playing

Vowels

Tanacross has five vowel symbols: i, e, a, o, u. All but o can occur either long or short; long vowels are written double.

Vowel	Example	Meaning	Similar English sound
ii	łii	dog	see
i	sínt'eh	it is	in
ee	éeł	trap	eight
e	sén'	star	men
aa	tsaath	roots	pot
a	k'á'	gun	pot
o	kón'	fire	cone
uu	tuu	water	sue
u	Tthiitú'	Tanana River	sue

Nasalization

Vowels may be nasalized — pronounced with air coming through the nose as well as the mouth. This is indicated with a nasal hook underneath the vowel. Note that o does not occur nasalized.

Vowel	Example	Meaning
į	k'įį	birch
ę	gęyh	dry
ą	ch'et'ą̨ą'	leaves
ų	gųų	worm

Tone

Vowels may be marked for tone using one of four diacritic marks above the vowel. Low tone is unmarked. Fluent speakers produce the correct tone without tone marking; tone marks are included here to assist learners.