Native to Canada Ethnicity Tsuu Tina ISO 639-3 srs | Region Alberta Native speakers 170 (2011 census) | |
Language family Dené–Yeniseian
Na-Dené
Athabaskan–Eyak
Athabaskan
Northern Athabaskan
Sarcee | ||
Sarcee (Sarsi), also Tsuut’ina (Tsuu T’ina, Tsu T’ina, Tsúùtínà) is a language spoken by the people of the Tsuu T'ina Nation band government whose reserve and community is near Calgary, Alberta. It belongs to the Athabaskan language family, which also include the Navajo and Chiricahua of the south, and the Dene Suline and Tłı̨chǫ of the north.
Contents
The name Tsuu T'ina comes from the Tsuu T’ina self designation Tsúùt’ínà which is translated variously as "many people", "nation tribe", or "people among the beavers".
Consonants
The consonants of Tsuut'ina in the standard orthography are listed below (with IPA notation in brackets):
* /p/ is only found in mimetic bu· 'to buzz' and borrowed bu·s 'cat'. The phonemic status of [kʷ] and [kʷʰ] is questionable; they might be /ku, kʰu/ before another vowel. /kʷʼ/ is quite rare but clearly phonemic.
Vowels
There are four distinct vowels in Tsuut'ina - i, a, o, and u. While a and o are fairly constant, i and u can vary considerably.
Nouns
Nouns in Tsuut'ina are not declined, and most plural nouns are not distinguished from singular nouns. However, kinship terms are distinguished between singular and plural form by adding the suffix -ká (or -kúwá) to the end of the noun or by using the word yìná.
People
Nature
Noun possession
Nouns can exist in free form or possessed form. When in possessed form, the prefixes listed below can be attached to nouns to show possession. For example, más, "knife", can be affixed with the 1st person prefix to become sìmázà’ or "my knife". Note that -mázà’ is the possessed form of the noun.
Some nouns, like más, as shown above, can alternate between free form and possessed form. A few nouns, like zòs, "snow", are never possessed and exist only in free form. Other nouns, such as -tsì’, "head", have no free form and must always be possessed.