Language Materials

For those interested in teaching or learning Dene, the open web offers a number of print and audio resources.  Some resources are useful for beginners and others for those seeking more detailed descriptions of Dene.  Resources provided below are organized into three categories: Teaching and Learning MaterialsLinguistic Descriptions, and Dene Translations of Christian Texts.

Teaching and Learning Materials


 Linguistic Descriptions

These texts are available at one or more of the following sites: Google Play (which requires signing up for a free google account) and Early Canadiana Online provide online viewing only; and Open Library and the Internet Archive provide online viewing and downloading in a variety of formats.

Eung-Do Cook has two resources available on the open web.

  1. A set of index cards an English-Chipewyan Dictionary made available at the University of Calgary. It features animal names, tools, clothing, body parts, people, plants, weather, food, colors, and seasons.
  2. Sarcee Grammar published in 1984 in Vancouver, British Columbia by University of British Columbia Press

Pliny Earle Goddard wrote a grammatical analysis of Chipewyan and compiled texts for Chipewyan and for Sarsi in the early 1900s that are now available on the open web.

  1. Analysis of Cold Lake Dialect, Chipewyan was originally published in 1912 in the Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History X(II).
  2. Chipewyan Texts, also published in 1912, appeared in the Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History X(I).  It is also available for online viewing  through Google Play .
  3. Sarsi Texts was published in 1915 in American Archaeology and Ethnology 11(3). 

Laurent LeGoff  produced a dictionary and a grammar for the Mountain variety of Dene.  French is the language used in both of these texts to explain Dene.

  1.  Dictionnaire Français–Montagnais: précédé d’une explication de l’alphabet et d’un tableau des principales raciness was published in 1976 in Paris by the Société Saint-Augustin, Desclée, de Brouwer & Cie.  
  2. Grammaire de la Langue Montagnaise was published in 1889 in Montreal but the publisher is unknown.  It is also available for online viewing through Google Play.  

Fang Kuei Li and Ronald Scollon produced a compilation of texts for Chipewyan, entitled Chipewyan Texts, which was published in 1976 in Taipei by Academia Sinica Special Publications.

A. G. Morice produced The new methodical, easy and complete Dene syllabary in 1890. This single-page document is accompanied by a two-page discussion of the advantages of using a syllabary.  

Summerfield, John (alias Sahgahjewagahbahweh) wrote a 37-page Sketch of grammar of the Chippeway language : to which is added a vocabulary of some of the most common words. It was published in 1834 in Cazenovia, NY by F. Fairchild.

 

Translations into Dene of Christian Texts

These translations are available at one or more of the following sites: Google Play (which requires signing up for a free google account) and Early Canadiana Online provide online viewing only; and Open Library and the Internet Archive provide online viewing and downloading in a variety of formats.


 
denespeechatlas@rochester.edu  © Joyce McDonough 2012