Tsilhqotʼin language

Chilcotin or Tŝilhqotʼin is a Northern Athabaskan language spoken in British Columbia by the Tsilhqotʼin people.

Name

The name Chilcotin is the anglicized form of the Chilcotin name for themselves, Tŝilhqotʼin, literally "people of the red ochre river". It has many variations in pronunciation and in spelling : Tsilhqotʼin, Tsilhqútʼin, Tsinlhqut’in, Tŝinlhqut’in. The form Tŝilhqut’in was considered the correct spelling in the 1970s, the form Tŝilhqot’in is the most commonly used in 2021. The people also call themselves Nenqayni and also call the language Nenqayni Chʼih.

Phonology

Consonants

Chilcotin has 47 consonants, likely the largest number within the Athabaskan family:

Like many other Athabaskan languages, Chilcotin does not have a contrast between fricatives and approximants.
The alveolar series is pharyngealized.
Dentals and alveolars:
* Both Krauss and Cook describe the dental and alveolar as being essentially identical in articulation, postdental, with the only differentiating factor being their different behaviours in the vowel flattening processes.
*Gafos describes the dental series as apico-laminal denti-alveolar and the alveolar series as lamino-postalveolar.

Vowels

Chilcotin has 6 vowels:

Chilcotin has both tense and lax vowel phonemes. Additionally, tense vowels may become lax from vowel laxing.

Every given Chilcotin vowel has a number of different phonetic realizations from complex phonological processes. For instance, the vowel can be variously pronounced.

Tone

Chilcotin is a tonal language with two tones: high tone and low tone.

Phonological processes

Chilcotin has vowel flattening and consonant harmony. Consonant harmony is rather common in the Athabaskan language family. Vowel flattening is unique to Chilcotin but is similar to phonological processes in other unrelated Interior Salishan languages spoken in the same area, such as Shuswap, Stʼátʼimcets, and Thompson River Salish. That type of harmony is an areal feature common in this region of North America. The Chilcotin processes, however, are much more complicated.

Vowel nasalization and laxing

Vowel nasalization is a phonological process by which the phoneme is nasalizes the preceding vowel. It occurs when the vowel + sequence is followed by a continuant consonant.
Vowel laxing is a process by which tense vowels become lax when followed by a syllable-final : the tense and lax distinction is neutralized.

Vowel flattening

Chilcotin has a type of retracted tongue root harmony. Generally, "flat" consonants lower vowels in both directions. Assimilation is both progressive and regressive.
Chilcotin consonants can be grouped into three categories: neutral, sharp, and flat.

Flat consonants trigger vowel flattening.
Sharp consonants block vowel flattening.
Neutral consonants do not affect vowel flattening in any way.

The flat consonants can be further divided into two types:

a '-series, and
a '-series.

The '-series is stronger than the '-series by affecting vowels farther away.
This table shows both unaffected vowels and flattened vowels:

unaffected vowel	flattened vowel
i	ᵊi or e
ɪ	ᵊɪ
u	o
ʊ	ɔ
ɛ	ə
æ	a

The vowel surfaces as if after a flat consonant and as before a flat consonant:
The progressive and regressive flattening processes are described below.

Progressive flattening

In the progressive flattening, the '-series consonants affect only the immediately following vowel:
Like the '-series, the stronger '-series consonants affects the immediately following vowel. However, it affects the vowel in the following syllable as well if the first flattened vowel is a lax vowel. If the first flattened is tense, the vowel of the following syllable is not flattened.
Thus, the neutral consonants are transparent in the flattening process. In the first word 'he's comatose', flattens the of the first syllable to and the of the second syllable to. In the word 'I'm sleeping', flattens to. Since, however, the vowel of the first syllable is, which is a tense vowel, the cannot flatten the of the second syllable.
The sharp consonants, however, block the progressive flattening caused by the '-series:

Regressive flattening

In regressive harmony, the '-series flattens the preceding vowel.
The regressive harmony of the '-series, however, is much stronger than the progressive harmony. The consonants flatten all preceding vowels in a word:
Both progressive and regressive flattening processes occur in Chilcotin words: