Gwichʼin language

Gwich’in is spoken by many first nations and residential schools played a factor in creating a cultural disruption and a language shift. During the time that residential schools were open their main goal was to change the way indigenous communities operated entirely. Another goal of the residential schools was to wipe out the indigenous culture and replace it with the European culture, also causing the indigenous children to abandon their heritage language. This process was done by taking the children away from their families and placing them in a school. Fortunately, the Gwich’in and the Dinjii Zhuh culture did survive the residential schools. Residential schools were a big situation that had and do still cause cultural disruptions. [13]

There are two main dialects of Gwichʼin, eastern and western, which are delineated roughly at the Canada–US border.[14] There are several dialects within these subgroupings, including Fort Yukon Gwichʼin, Arctic Village Gwichʼin, Western Canada Gwichʼin (Takudh, Tukudh, Loucheux), and Arctic Red River. Each village has unique dialect differences, idioms, and expressions. The Old Crow people in the northern Yukon have approximately the same dialect as those bands living in Venetie and Arctic Village, Alaska.

Gwich’in speakers located in Old Crow speak several dialects including Kâachik and Tâachik. They are spoken in Johnson Creek village.[10]

The consonants of Gwichʼin in the standard orthography are listed below (with IPA notation in brackets):[9]

• Nasal vowels are marked with an ogonek, e.g. [ą]
• Low tone is marked with a grave accent, e.g. [à]
• High tone is never marked
• The vowels are composed with most English letters. Even though the English letters are present they don't have the same sound that they normally would posses. For instance ii now it takes the form of sounding like ee.

A verb In Gwich’in contains smaller word parts that come together to make a word/ verb. A verb can be composed by using a stem, which is then accompanied by smaller word parts which are also known as prefixes. A prefix gives off a lot of information, it informs an individual about if the word is in A past or present tents. A prefix can also inform the individual about the number of people participating A stem can be found at the end of the word and the prefix follows right behind the stem, when reading a verb read from the right to left so full understanding is obtained.