Tanacross phonology

Tanacross is one of four Athabaskan tone languages spoken in Alaska. The others are Gwichʼin, Han, and Upper Tanana. Tanacross is the only Alaska Athabaskan language to exhibit high tone as a reflex of Proto-Athabaskan constriction.

Vowels

There are six phonemic vowels:

	Front	Central	Back
High	i		u
Mid	e	ə	o
Low		a

The vowels i, e, a, and u may be distinguished for length, indicated in the practical orthography by doubling the vowel. The reduced vowel ä is indicated via the letter ⟨e⟩. Thus, the practical orthography does not distinguish short e from ə.

Vowels may be marked for high (á), rising (ǎ), falling (â) or extra-high (á́) tone. Low tone is unmarked.

Consonants

The consonants of the Tanacross practical orthography are shown below. This practical orthography follows standard Athabaskan conventions, in particular, stops and affricates are grouped together phonologically. Also, voiceless unaspirated stops/afficates consonants are indicated using, for the most part, the IPA symbols for voiced consonants, while voiceless aspirated consonants are indicated using the IPA symbols for voiceless consonants. Note that in coda position the unaspirated/aspirated distinction reverts to a voiceless/voiced distinction, providing further motivation for the choice of symbols in the practical orthography.

		Labial	Alveolar		Dental	Lateral	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Stops/ Affricates	unspirated	b [p]	d [t]	dz [t͜s]	dð [t͜θ]	dl [t͜ɬ]	j [t͜ʃ]	g [k]	' [ʔ]
	aspirated	p [pʰ]	t [tʰ]	ts [t͜sʰ]	tq [t͜θʰ]	tl [t͜ɬʰ]	c [t͜ʃʰ]	k [kʰ]
	ejective	p' [pʼ]	t' [tʼ]	ts' [t͜sʼ]	tq' [t͜θʼ]	tl' [t͜ɬʼ]	c' [t͜ʃʼ]	k' [kʼ]
Fricatives	voiced	v [v]		z [z]	ð [ð]	l [l]		ɣ [ɣ]
	semi-voiced*			s [z̥]	q [ð̥]	ł [ɮ̊]	ʃ [ʒ̊]	x [ɣ̊]
	voiceless	f [f]		s [s]	q [θ]	ł [ɬ]	ʃ [ʃ]	x [x]	h [h]
Sonorants	voiced	m [m]	n [n]				y [j]
	voiceless		nh [n̥]				yh [j̊]

Semi-voiced fricatives

One of the distinguishing features of Tanacross is the presence of so-called semi-voiced fricatives, a unique type of segment which appear to begin voiceless and transition to fully voiced. Acoustically, semi-voiced fricatives are characterized by lower intensity of high-frequency frication. Semi-voiced fricatives occur in stem-initial position in lieu of fully voiced fricatives. Even though they are essentially allophonic variants of the voiced fricatives, semi-voiced fricatives are indicated in the practical orthography via an underscore beneath the corresponding voiceless segment.

łii	'dog'
shłǐig'	'my dog' ( listen )

External links

• Tanacross language