Tlingit | |
---|---|
Lingít | |
Pronunciation | /ɬìnkít/ |
Native to | United States, Canada |
Region | Alaska, British Columbia, Yukon, Washington |
Ethnicity | 10,000 Tlingit (1995) |
Native speakers
|
500 in US (2007) 2 in British Columbia (2014); unknown number in Yukon |
Dené–Yeniseian?
|
|
Tlingit alphabet (Latin script) | |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-2 |
|
ISO 639-3 |
|
Glottolog | tlin1245 |
The Tlingit language (English: /ˈklɪŋkɪt/, /-ɡɪt/; Tlingit: Lingít [ɬìnkít]) is spoken by the Tlingit people of Southeast Alaska and Western Canada. It is a branch of the Na-Dene language family. Extensive effort is being put into revitalization programs in Southeast Alaska to revive and preserve the Tlingit language and culture.
Missionaries of the Russian Orthodox Church were the first to develop a written version of Tlingit, using the Cyrillic script to record and translate it, when the Russian Empire had contact with Alaska and the coast of North America down to Sonoma County, California. Later, English-speaking missionaries from the United States developed a written version of the language using the Latin alphabet.
The history of Tlingit is poorly known, mostly because there is no written record until the first contact with Europeans around the 1790s. Documentation was sparse and irregular until the early 20th century. The language appears to have spread northward from the Ketchikan–Saxman area towards the Chilkat region, since certain conservative features are reduced gradually from south to north. The shared features between the Eyak language, found around the Copper River delta, and Tongass Tlingit near the Portland Canal are all the more striking for the distances that separate them, both geographic and linguistic.