X-Nico

5 unusual facts about Tlingit language


Pertingent case

The pertingent case is a grammatical case found in the Tlingit language.

Tlingit language

The exception is an area known as Inland Tlingit, which extends up the Taku River and into northern British Columbia and the Yukon Territory around the Atlin (Áa Tleen "Big Lake") and Teslin (Desleen < Tas Tleen "Big Thread") lake districts, as well as a concentration around Bennett Lake at the end of the Chilkoot Trail (Jilkhoot).

Edward Sapir (1915) argued for its inclusion in the Na-Dené family, a claim which was subsequently debated by Franz Boas (1917), P.E. Goddard (1920), and many other prominent linguists of the time.

A number of amateur anthropologists doing extensive work on the Tlingit had no training in linguistics whatsoever and left numerous samples in vague and inconsistent transcriptions, the most famous being George T. Emmons.

The northernmost dialect is called the Yakutat (Yakhwdaat) dialect, after its principal town.



see also

Tlingit alphabet

The other most widespread transcriptions were the one used extensively by John Swanton in his Tlingit Myths and Texts and The Tlingit Language, and the one used by Frederica de Laguna in her Story of a Tlingit Village and Under Mount Saint Elias.