Tlingit language
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9.9
- noun
- /ˈtlɪŋkɪt ˈlæŋɡwɪdʒ/
- Students in the immersion program are learning the Tlingit language through songs and stories.
Examples
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While the teaching of the Tlingit language has had rather limited success, traditional carving, beadwork, and other visual arts, as well as singing and dancing, have experienced a significant revival.
Academic text (1990) -
The meeting's goal was to hear the elders' opinions about their own special needs (health care, housing, etc.) and their views on the future of the corporation and the Tlingit language and culture.
Academic text (1990) -
This privileging of English, emphasized by many Tlingits, and the subsequent effects on the Tlingit language can be seen as a symbolic gesture meant to ensure the survival of the tribe and not the refutation of traditional culture.
Academic text (2009) -
Many Tlingit elders are working hard to preserve the Tlingit language for future generations.
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The revival of traditional Tlingit culture has sparked interest in the Tlingit language among young people.
Synonyms
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9.9
The language spoken by a native people of southeastern Alaska
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase is directly compositional: 'Tlingit' names the people/ethnic group or proper noun and 'language' denotes a speech system, so a learner who knows both constituents will infer it refers to the language spoken by the Tlingit people. This naming pattern (X language = the language of X) is cross-linguistically common and therefore immediately understandable.
Etymology
Tlingit language takes its name from the people called Tlingit, and that name may come from their own word for 'people of the tide' because they lived along the coast. So Tlingit language means the native speech of those coastal people.