Michif phonology

Michif as recorded starting in the 1970s combined two separate phonological systems: one for French origin elements, and one for Cree origin elements (Rhodes 1977, 1986). For instance, /y/, /l/, /r/ and /f/ exist only in French words, whereas preaspirated stops such as /ʰt/ and /ʰk/ exist only in Cree words. In this variety of Michif, the French elements were pronounced in ways that have distinctively Canadian French values for the vowels, while the Cree elements have distinctively Cree values for vowels. Nonetheless, there is some Cree influence on French words in the stress system (Rosen 2006). But by the year 2000 there were Michif speakers who had collapsed the two systems into a single system (Rosen 2007).

Consonants

Consonants in Manitoba Michif

	Labial	Labio- dental	Alveolar	Alveo- palatal	Velar	Glottal
Stops	ʰp p b		ʰt t d	ʰc c ɟ	ʰk k g	ʔ
Affricates				ʰtʃ tʃ dʒ
Sibilants			s z	ʃ ʒ
Fricatives	ɸ β	f v	θ̠ ð̠	ç ʝ	x ɣ	h ɦ
Nasals	m		n	ɲ	ŋ
Trills	ʙ		r
Laterals			l	ʎ	ʟ
Approximants	w	ʋ	ɹ	j	ɰ

Vowels

Michif has 24 oral vowels and four nasalized vowels.

Oral Vowels

Oral vowels in Manitoba Michif

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i ɪ	y ɯ	ʊ u
Close-mid	e ø	ɘ ɵ	ɤ o
Open-mid	ɛ œ	ɜ ɞ	ʌ ɔ
Open	æ a	ɶ ɒ̈	ɑ ɒ

Nasalized Vowels

The following four vowels are nasalized in Michif:

• /ĩ/
• /ɛ̃/
• /ɔ̃/
• /ɑ̃/

Schwa-Deletion

A schwa /ə/ appearing between two consonants in French-origin words is dropped in Michif. Examples of this process are listed in the table below.

/e/-deletion in Michif

French	Michif	English
chemin	shmen	'path'
cheveux	zhveu	'hair'
petit	pchi	'small'
cheval	zhwal	'horse'

Liaison consonants

In French, a liaison is used to bridge the gap between word-final and word-initial vowel sounds. Whether liaison still exists in Michif is a much discussed theoretical issue. Scholars such as Bakker (1997), Rhodes (1986) Rhodes, R. 1986. Métchif: A second look. In Actes du Dix-septième Congrès des Algonquinistes, ed. W. Cowan, Ottawa, Carleton University Press, p. 287-296.</ref>, and Rosen (2007)have suggested that liaison no longer exists in Michif and that all words that etymologically began with a vowel in French now begin with a consonant, the latter resulting from a variety of sources, including a liaison consonant. Their arguments are based on the fact that the expected liaison consonant (for example, /n/) will not show up and instead, the consonant will be /z/, as in 'in zur' 'a bear' The above authors cite over a dozen words with an unexpected initial consonant. Papen (2003, 2014) has countered this argument by showing that, statistically, the vast majority of so-called initial consonants in Michif reflect the expected liaison consonant and that only about 13% of so-called initial consonants are unexpected. Moreover, Papen points out that one of the so-called initial consonant is /l/, which in nearly all cases, represents the elided definite artcle 'l' (from 'li'), in which case it cannot be a liaison consonant, since liaison consonants may not have grammatical or semantic meaning. Thus in a sequence such as 'larb' the meaning is not simply 'tree' but 'the tree', where initial 'l' has the meaning of 'the', and /l/ is initial only in a phonetic sense, but not in a phonological one, since it represents a distinct morpheme from 'arb', and thus 'arb' must be considered as phonologically vowel-initial. T

Liaison consonants in Michif

French	Michif	English
arbre	zarbr	'tree'
étoile	zetwel	'star'
oeuf	zoeuf	'egg'
os	zo	'bone'
oignons	zawyoun	'onion'

Palatalization

The voiced alveolar stop /d/ in French-origin words is palatalized to /dʒ/ in Michif, as it is in Acadian French. This may occur word-initially or word-internally.

Palatalization of /d/ in Michif

French	Michif	English
dix	jis	'ten'
diable	jiab	'devil'
dieu	Bon Jeu	'God'
mardi	marji	'Tuesday'
radis	rawjee	'radish'
diner	jinee	'dinner'
dimanche	jimawnsh	'Sunday'

External links

• Michif