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Linguistic divergence in Fort Chipewyan1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

Eung-Do Cook
Eung-Do Cook
Affiliation:
Department of Linguistics, The University of Calgary
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Abstract

Scollon and Scollon (1979) claimed that the consonantal system of Chipewyan in Fort Chipewyan has been reduced to 16 segments from 39 influenced by Cree, a case of linguistic convergence. This conclusion was based on their incoherent and indiscriminate admixture of variable data. While there is no Chipewyan speaker whose consonantal inventory includes only 16 phonemes, there is ample evidence for the merger of two series of coronal affricates in an innovative system like in other Athapaskan languages that have had no intimate contact with Cree. That is, there is evidence for intralinguistic divergence, but not for interlinguistic convergence. Neither is there any evidence to support another major claim by the Scollons that the sibilant alternations in Chipewyan are correlated with “world views.” All the changes, including sibilant alternations and coronal mergers, recorded in Fort Chipewyan are those frequently observed in other Athapaskan communities. (Language contact, change, convergence, divergence, variability, obsolescence, register, sociolinguistic variable)

Type
Articles
Information
Language in Society , Volume 20 , Issue 3 , September 1991 , pp. 423 - 440
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1991

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