Commonly seen winter birds in eastern Interior Alaska with their rightful Tanacross Dene names. Bird sketches courtesy National Audubon Society. @transitionalaspect @ScoterD

#Dene #Language #Alaska

@AlaskaWx @transitionalaspect @ScoterD Oooh, this is neat. I need to look up the local names for our birds here (we're in Chumash country).
@ai6yr @AlaskaWx @transitionalaspect such as yopyop mockingbird
yuxnuts hummingbird
from Chumash dictionary (I donʼt know how to sound them out)
https://ciapps.csuci.edu/ChumashDictionary/Home/Search?language=English&keyword=bird&btnSubmit=Search
mitsqanaqan̓ Dictionary - CSU Channel Islands

@ScoterD @AlaskaWx @transitionalaspect Thanks! I need to ask if anyone has recorded pronunciation of these (coincidentally, I actually teach at that school in a different department).
@ai6yr @ScoterD @AlaskaWx @transitionalaspect I didn't know about this project. I was in the Ling Dept at UCSB and knew people working on Chumash.

@14mission @ScoterD @AlaskaWx @transitionalaspect Looks like this is a new(er) thing

VCSTAR: From 'haku' to 'muwu:' Chumash launch online dictionary to keep their words alive

https://www.vcstar.com/story/news/local/2024/03/22/ventureo-chumash-launch-dictionary-to-revitalize-words-culture/72994728007/

From 'haku' to 'muwu:' Chumash launch online dictionary to keep their words alive

Hello is "haku." Ocean is "muwu." A new online dictionary is aimed at revitalizing the ancient Chumash language of Mitsqanaqan̓.

Ventura County Star

@14mission @ScoterD @AlaskaWx @transitionalaspect The names in that article (if you can get to it, it intermittently paywalls me) are these folks

https://lulapin.org/about

About — lulapin chumash foundation

Learn about the Lulapin Chumash Foundation vision, board and meaning of Lulapin. Also see our champions, those who support our community.

lulapin chumash foundation
@ScoterD @ai6yr @AlaskaWx @transitionalaspect "x" is the phonetic symbol for the ch sound in Loch Ness, or L'chaim, and that's usually how it's used in transcribing American Indian languages. "š" = sh (Linguists in other countries use a different standardized symbol for this sound; apparently, American linguistics picked up a few bits of Czech spelling from linguists fleeing the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia.
"q" is a k sound prounced farther back (or lower) in the throat (which is found in Arabic); if you're trying to incorporate these words into an English sentence you can just say "k". The apostrophe glued on top of another consonant means "glottalization". A glottal stop is the sound you make in the middle of "uh-oh". To make another consonant "glottalized" you either say that at the same time as the base consonant or afterwards.
That's probably more information than you want!
But the "x" and "š" are pretty easy to do.
@ScoterD @ai6yr @AlaskaWx @transitionalaspect More fun Chumash language grammar trivia: It has "sibilant harmony".
This means if you add a suffix to a word, and the suffix contains š, it turns any s in the word into a š (and maybe vice-versa).
I found some examples:
(From this paper: https://roa.rutgers.edu/files/879-1006/879-MCCARTHY-0-0.PDF "Optimality Theory" was a big deal about when I was finishing school. It's complete BS, and the sort of thing that made me happy to work in industry instead of academia).
@ScoterD @ai6yr @AlaskaWx @transitionalaspect One more--Chumash has lots of kinds of reduplication. That means you make a copy of part of a word, usually the beginning.
For example, the Chumash build boats out of reeds. One reed boat is "tomol". The plural is "tomtomol".
The are a bunch of reduplication patterns and more than one can happen in the same word. It gets complicated. A friend of mine wrote her dissertation on this.
Guess I miss this stuff.
@14mission @ScoterD @ai6yr @AlaskaWx @transitionalaspect
There is a #MeshCore repeater above Santa Barbara named Tomolia 00 🛶, named after the tomol,
and another named Wexu’yria 🏔 which is to do with mountain.
https://livemap.wcmesh.com/?lat=34.44146&long=-119.7585&zoom=10
West Coast Mesh Live Map

Live view of mesh nodes, message routes, and advert paths.

@14mission @ai6yr @AlaskaWx @transitionalaspect Thanks for the phoneme information 14mission. Itʼs intriguing - Lingít has x x̱ x' x̱ʼ xw xʼw x̱ʼw (and matching kʼs ) - so Iʼm glad you suggested Chumash orthography is different. and we use a dot for a glottal stop
@ScoterD @14mission @ai6yr @transitionalaspect Practical orthography for Alaskan Dene languages, glottal stop is ‘ and elective stops e.g. k’. For the languages that maintain the velar/uvular distinction, uvular stops written as kk and kk’, not q as in Yupik, Inupiat, etc.
@AlaskaWx @ScoterD @ai6yr @transitionalaspect I take it these languages do not have geminates (doubled-up consonants)? Because if they did, the kk for uvular would get confusing.
@14mission @ScoterD @ai6yr @transitionalaspect They do not have geminates, so no confusion.