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Chipewyan language

Chipewyan
Denesuline
ᑌᓀᓱᒼᕄᓀ Dënesųłiné
Native to Canada
Region Northern Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba; southern Northwest Territories and Nunavut
Ethnicity Chipewyan people
Native speakers
12,000 (2011 census)
NAPA
Dene Syllabics
Official status
Official language in
Northwest Territories (Canada)
Language codes
ISO 639-2
ISO 639-3
Glottolog chip1261
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters.

Chipewyan /ɪpəˈwən/, ethnonym Dënesųłiné IPA: [ tènɛ̀sũ̀ɬìnɛ́], is the language spoken by the Chipewyan people of northwestern Canada. It is categorized as part of the Northern Athabaskan language family. Dënesųłiné has nearly 12,000 speakers in Canada, mostly in Saskatchewan, Alberta, Manitoba and the Northwest Territories. It has official status only in the Northwest Territories, alongside 8 other aboriginal languages: Cree, Dogrib, Gwich’in, Inuktitut, Inuinnaqtun, Inuvialuktun, North Slavey and South Slavey.

Most Chipewyan people now use Dené and Dënesųłiné to refer to themselves as a people and to their language, respectively. The Saskatchewan communities of Fond-du-Lac, Black Lake, Wollaston Lake and La Loche are among these.

The 39 consonants of Dënesųłiné:


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