Upper Kuskokwim language

The Upper Kuskokwim language (also called Kolchan or Goltsan or Dinak'i) is an Athabaskan language of the Na-Dené language family. It is spoken by the Upper Kuskokwim people in the Upper Kuskokwim River villages of Nikolai, Telida, and McGrath, Alaska. About 40 of a total of 160 Upper Kuskokwim people (Dichinanek’ Hwt’ana) still speak the language.

A practical orthography of the language was established by Raymond Collins, who in 1964 began linguistic work at Nikolai.

Since 1990s, the language has also been documented by a Russian linguist Andrej Kibrik.

Vowels
/ɪ/ may range to either [ɪ] or mid as [ə].

Nouns
Nouns are divided into two classes: those which can be possessed, but do not have to be (such as clothing, animals and lake names) and those which are always possessed (such as body parts).

For the former group, some nouns that are possessed have a change in spelling and pronunciation when they are possessed. For example, the prefix "si-" indicates "my".

However, other nouns that may be possessed do not undergo any sound changes, and instead the possession is indicated either by the separate possessive word sich'i, or by the prefix si-. For example, k'esh (birch tree) becomes sich'i k'esh (my birch tree) and tin (trail) becomes sitin (my trail).

Verbs can be changed into nouns with the suffix -e. This also causes sound changes in some verbs.

Adjectives
There are few adjectives that modify nouns in Upper Kuskokwim. Adjectives are added after nouns, e.g. nilane gwṉ (dried meat).

Syntax
Upper Kuskokwim uses SOV word order. It is a partially inflectional and partially agglutinative language, and a pro-drop language.

Dina dineje izdlan.

man moose he/she-caught

'The man caught a moose.'

Dineje izdlan.

moose he/she-caught

'He caught a moose.'

Yizdlan.

it-he/she-caught

'He caught it.'

Links

 * Upper Kuskokwim Language and Culture Preservation (website in development)
 * Dinak'i | Upper Kuskokwim Dictionary iOS app