Dane-zaa
Beaver
Dane-ẕaa Ẕáágéʔ (ᑕᓀᖚ ᖚᗀᐥ)
Native to	Canada
Region	British Columbia,Alberta
Ethnicity	1,700Dane-zaa (2016)[1]
Native speakers	270 (2021 census)[2]
Language family	Dené–Yeniseian? Na-Dené Athabaskan–Eyak Athabaskan Northern Athabaskan Dane-zaa
Language codes
ISO 639-3	bea
Glottolog	beav1236
ELP	Dane-Zaa (Beaver)
Beaver is classified as Definitely Endangered by theUNESCOAtlas of the World's Languages in Danger.
This article containsIPA phonetic symbols. Without properrendering support, you may seequestion marks, boxes, or other symbols instead ofUnicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, seeHelp:IPA.

Dane-zaa, known in the language asDane-ẕaa Ẕáágéʔ (syll:ᑕᓀᖚ ᖚᗀᐥ), formerly known asBeaver, is an Athabascan language of western Canada. It means "people-regular language." About one-tenth of theDane-zaa people speak the language.

Beaver is closely related to the languages spoken by neighboring Athabaskan groups, such asSlavey,Sekani,Tsuu T’ina,Chipewyan, andKaska.

The dialects of Dane-zaa language are two main groups. Dialects that developed high tone from stem-final glottalic consonants are calledhigh-marked and dialects that developed low tonelow-marked. From north to south are as follows:^[3]

• theHigh-marked Dane-zaa dialects:
  • Boyer River (Alberta) dialect is spoken by members of theBeaver First Nation
  • Child Lake (Alberta) dialect is spoken by members of the Beaver First Nation
  • Prophet River (British Columbia) dialect is spoken by members of theProphet River First Nation
  • Blueberry River (British Columbia) dialect is spoken by members of theBlueberry River First Nation
  • Doig River (British Columbia) dialect is spoken by members of theDoig River First Nation
• theLow-marked Dane-zaa dialects:
  • Halfway River (British Columbia) dialect is spoken by members of theHalfway River First Nation
  • West Moberly Lake (British Columbia) dialect is spoken by members of theWest Moberly First Nations

A 1991 estimate gave 300 total speakers out of a population of 600 Dane-zaa people.^[4] Leading up to 2007, Dane-zaa was "spoken in eastern British Columbia (in the communities ofDoig River (Hanás̱ Saahgéʔ), Blueberry, Halfway River,Hudson Hope, andProphet River) and in northwestern Alberta (in the communities ofHorse Lakes,Clear Hills,Boyer River (Rocky Lane), Rock Lane, and Child Lake (Eleske) Reserves)."^[5][6] A 2011 CD by Garry Oker features traditional Beaver language chanting with world beat and country music.^[7]

English is now the first language of most Dane-zaa children, and of many adults in the Dane-zaa communities. Dane-zaa was the primary language until the grandparents and parents started to send their children to school in the 1950s. English only became dominant in the 1980s. Because the language is orally based, Dane-zaa becomes increasingly endangered as the fluent speakers pass away. The 1918Spanish flu epidemic was a contributor in language loss because it decimated the Dane-zaa population, claiming the lives of hunters, mothers and the older population. To fully recover from this, it took several generations. Because fluency lay in the older generation, the epidemic played a part in that loss of language.^[8] The loss of Suu Na Chii Kʼchinge, the traditional meeting place for the Dane-zaa, along with residential schools, resulted in the loss of language. As schools were built on the reserves, a lack of teachers due to the isolation as well as them being forbidden to write about the poverty and realities of colonial violence added to that loss.^[9]

Alfred Garrioch (1848–1934) was a Christian missionary of the AnglicanChurch Mission Society (CMS) who worked with the Beaver. He was born in 1848 in what would later become Manitoba. In 1876 he established a CMS mission and Indian children training school atFort Vermilion, under the name of Unjaga Mission. He learnt and analysed the Beaver language and translated theGospel of Mark into Beaver. In the mid-1880s he visited England where he had his work in the Beaver language printed. In 1886 Garrioch returned to mission work among the Beaver Indians. In 1892 he returned to Manitoba. In 1905 he retired from active work and settled atPortage la Prairie, Manitoba. In 1925 he wrote two autobiographical accounts of his life calledThe Far and Furry North and in 1929A Hatchet Mark in Duplicate. He died in 1934.

In 1885 theSociety for Promoting Christian Knowledge (SPCK) publishedA Primer and a Vocabulary in the Beaver Indian Language. In 1886 SPCK publishedA Manual of Devotion in the Beaver Indian Language and also published his Gospel of Mark in syllabic characters with syllabarium, supplementary syllabarium, chapter headings and illustrations. In 1886 theBritish and Foreign Bible Society (BFBS) published his Gospel of Mark asOotech oochu Takehniya-Tinkles St. Mark in Roman characters without the illustrations. This has been digitised and is online on YouVersion^[10] and BibleSearch.^[11]

In 1959 and throughout the 1960s, anthropologist Robin Ridington began working with the Doig River First Nation on the documentation and recording of Dane-zaa. He returned in 1978 with his second wife Jillian Ridington and they worked with Howard Broomfield and linguist Billy Attachie. His daughter Amber Ridington collaborated with Dane-zaa youth and elders to createDane Wajich: Dane-zaa Stories and Songs-Dreamers and the Land, a virtual library that has made Dane-zaa pronunciations and other resources on Dane-zaa culture available to the public.^[12]

In 1968John chapter 3 was translated by Marshall and Jean Holdstock and published asLǫ́ǫ́se nadááse byScripture Gift Mission.

In 2004–2011, the language as spoken by the elders of the Beaver First Nations communities in Alberta and British Columbia was collected as part of the DoBeS Beaver documentation project. The intent was to document an endangered language from a place names' perspective, collecting place names along with stories of culturally relevant locations and personal migration stories, allowing for the exploration of spatial expressions in the language. These materials, along with other grammatical and pedagogical items, are held in the DoBeS Archive and are available for download, subject to agreeing to the terms of access.

Dane-zaa has 35 consonants:

Dane-zaa has 10phonemic vowels.

Two vowels contrast oral and nasal qualities.

This sectionneeds expansion. You can help byadding missing information.(May 2024)

Dane-zaa has gender-neutral pronouns where less importance is put on the person.^[13]

• His/Her/It:ma-
• His/Her own:da-

• "Bibliography of Materials on the Beaver Language". Yinka Déné Language Institute. 2012.
• "Dane Wajich-Dane-ẕaa Stories and Songs-Dreamers and the Land". Doig River First Nation. 2007. Archived fromthe original on 2017-03-01. Retrieved2019-10-10.
• Randoja, Tiina Kathryn (1990).The Phonology and Morphology of Halfway River Beaver (PhD dissertation). University of Ottawa.hdl:10393/5749.
• Story, Gillian (1989). "Problems of Phonemic Representation in Beaver". In Cook, Eung-Do; Rice, Keren (eds.).Athapaskan Linguistics: Current Perspectives on a Language Family. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. pp. 63–98.
• Ridington, Robin; Ridington, Jillian (2006).When You Sing It Now, Just Like New: First Nations Poetics, Voices, and Representation. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
• Ridington, Robin; Ridington, Jillian (2013).Where Happiness Dwells: A History of the Dane-zaa First Nations. Vancouver: UBC Press.

• Beaver page on First Nations Languages of British Columbia site, with bibliography
• Beaver Indian Language (Dunneza, Tsattine)
• FirstVoices Tsaaʔ Dane - Beaver People Community Portal
• Beaver Language, DoBeS
• OLAC resources in and about the Beaver language
• Dane Wajich-Dane-zaa Stories and Songs-Dreamers and the Land

• Indigenous languages of the North American Subarctic
• First Nations languages in Canada
• Northern Athabaskan languages
• Dane-zaa
• Endangered Athabaskan languages

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Articles containing Dane-zaa-language text
• ISO language articles citing sources other than Ethnologue
• Articles to be expanded from May 2024
• All articles to be expanded