Sounds Southern Athabaskan languages

1 sounds

1.1 consonants

1.1.1 orthography (consonants)


1.2 vowels
1.3 tone
1.4 comparative phonology

sounds

all southern athabaskan languages have similar phonologies. description below concentrate on western apache. 1 can expect minor variations of description in other related languages (such navajo, jicarilla, chiricahua).

consonants

southern athabaskan languages have consonant inventory similar set of 33 consonants below (based on western apache):

only navajo , western apache have glottalized nasals.

orthography (consonants)

the practical orthography corresponds pronunciation of southern athabaskan languages (as opposed writing systems of english or vietnamese). below table pairing phonetic notation orthographic symbol:

some spelling conventions:

vowels

southern athabaskan languages have 4 vowels of contrasting tongue dimensions (as written in general practical orthography):

these vowels may short or long , oral (non-nasal) or nasal. nasal vowels indicated ogonek (or nasal hook) diacritic ˛ in western apache, navajo, mescalero, , chiricahua while in jicarilla nasal vowels indicated underlining vowel. results in sixteen different vowels:

ipa equivalents western apache oral vowels:

i = [ɪ], ii = [iː], e = [ɛ], ee = [ɛː], o = [o], oo = [ʊː], = [ɐ], aa = [ɑː].

in western apache, there practice orthographic vowels o , oo written u in contexts. these contexts not include nasalized vowels, nasal u never occurs in orthography. practice continues present (perhaps inconsistently).

however, in harry hoijer , other american linguists work o-vowels written o. similarly, navajo not use orthographic u, consistently writing vowel o.

in chiricahua , mescalero, vowel written u in contexts (including nasalized ų).

other practices may used in other apachean languages.

tone

southern athabaskan languages tonal languages. hoijer , other linguists analyze southern athabaskan languages having 4 tones (using americanist transcription system):

high (marked acute accent ´, example: á)
low (marked grave accent `, example: à)
rising (marked háček ˇ, example: ǎ)
falling (marked circumflex ˆ, example: â)

rising , falling tones less common in language (often occurring on morpheme boundaries) , occur on long vowels. vowels can carry tone syllabic n (example: ń).

the practical orthography has tried simplify americanist transcription system representing high tone acute accent while leaving low tone unmarked:

high tone: á
low tone: a

so niziz written instead of previous nìzìz.

additionally, rising tone on long vowels indicated unmarked first vowel , acute accent on second, vice versa falling tone:

rising: aá (instead of americanist: ǎ·)
falling: áa (instead of americanist: â·)

nasal vowels carry tone well, resulting in 2 diacritics on vowels high tone: ą́ (presenting problems computerization). recently, de reuse (2006) has found western apache has mid tone, indicates macron diacritic ¯, in ō, ǭ. in chiricahua, falling tone can occur on syllabic n: n̂.

here vowel contrasts involving nasalization, tone, , length chiricahua apache:

cha̧a̧   feces
chaa   beaver
shiban   buckskin
shibán   bread
bik’ai’   hip
bík’ai’   stepmother
hah’aał   2 going chew
hah’ał   2 chewing

comparative phonology

the southern athabascan branch defined harry hoijer according merger of stem-initial consonants of proto-athabascan series *k̯ , *c *c (in addition widespread merger of *č , *čʷ *č found in many northern athabascan languages).

hoijer (1938) divided apachean sub-family eastern branch consisting of jicarilla, lipan, , plains apache , western branch consisting of navajo, western apache (san carlos), chiricahua, , mescalero based on merger of proto-apachean *t , *k k in eastern branch. thus, can seen in example below, when western languages have noun or verb stems start t, related forms in eastern languages start k:

he later revised proposal in 1971 when found plains apache did not participate in *k̯/*c merger consider plains apache language equi-distant other languages, called southwestern apachean. thus, stems started *k̯ in proto-athabascan start ch in plains apache while other languages start ts.

morris opler (1975) has suggested hoijer s original formulation jicarilla , lipan in eastern branch more in agreement cultural similarities between these 2 , differences other western apachean groups. other linguists, particularly michael krauss (1973), have noted classification based on initial consonants of noun , verb stems arbitrary , when other sound correspondences considered relationships between languages appear more complex. additionally, has been pointed out martin huld (1983) since plains apache not merge proto-athabascan *k̯/*c, plains apache cannot considered apachean language defined hoijer.

other differences , similarities among southern athabaskan languages can observed in following modified , abbreviated swadesh list: