| Southern Carrier | |
|---|---|
| Lower Carrier | |
| Dakelh | |
_cropped.jpg) Sign sayingWheni Lheidli T'enneh ts'inli meaning 'we are Lheidli T'enneh' in the Lheidli dialect.[1] | |
| Native to | Canada |
| Region | British Columbia |
| Ethnicity | Dakelh |
Native speakers | (500 cited 1987)[2] |
Na-Dene
| |
| Dialects |
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | caf |
| Glottolog | sout2958 |
Southern Carrier,Lower Carrier or locallyDakelh is an endangereddialect group of theAthabaskanCarrier language ofBritish Columbia, Canada.
The dialects belonging to Southern Carrier roughly correspond to those to the south ofFort St. James. The group is divided into two subgroups, Fraser/Nechakoh and Blackwater which are further subdivided into individual dialects.[3]
The Fraser/Nechakoh subdivision of Southern Carrier includes theLheidli,Saik'uz,Nadleh, Nautey, Stelakoh,Stoney Creek, Prince George andCheslatta dialects. The Blackwater division includes theAnahim Lake,Red Bluff,Nazko,Kluskus, andUlkatcho dialects.[4]
According to a 2016 census conducted by theGovernment of Canada, there were 1,270 fluent speakers of the Carrier language. Among the 1,270 speakers, 1,045 have the language as a single mother tongue and 225 have the language as one of their mother tongues.[5]
Southern Carrier has an extremely extensive and productive system of noun classifications. It has multiple classification subsystems and they can take place in the same sentence or same verb.[6]
FirstVoices is an onlineindigenous languages archiving and learning resource administered by theFirst Peoples' Cultural Council of British Columbia, Canada. Dakelh/Southern Carrier language is one of the languages documented on the website.[7] Information on alphabets, words, phrases, songs, and stories are available. Both orthography and voice recordings are provided on the website. Games and a kids portal are also available for pre-readers to engage with the language.
The Nazko-Dakelh mobile application has a bilingual dictionary and a collection of Dakelh/Southern Carrier language phrases that are archived on the FirstVoices website. It is available for free on bothApple andAndroid mobile operating systems.
 | This article related to theIndigenous languages of the Americas is astub. You can help Wikipedia byexpanding it. |