Language
The Tlingit language (Lingít ) is spoken by the Tlingit people of Southeast Alaska and Western Canada. It is a branch of the Na-Dené language family. It is well known not only for its complex grammar and sound system, but also for using certain phonemes unheard in almost any other language.
Tlingit has an estimated 200-400 native speakers in the United States and 100 speakers in Canada. The speakers are bilingual or near-bilingual in English. Extensive effort is being put into revitalization programs in Southeast Alaska to revive and preserve the Tlingit language and its culture. Sealaska Heritage Institute and the University of Alaska, Southeast both have Tlingit language programs, and community classes are held in Klukwan and Angoon.
Read more about this topic: Tlingit People
Famous quotes containing the word language:
“English general and singular terms, identity, quantification, and the whole bag of ontological tricks may be correlated with elements of the native language in any of various mutually incompatible ways, each compatible with all possible linguistic data, and none preferable to another save as favored by a rationalization of the native language that is simple and natural to us.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)
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“This poem is concerned with language on a very plain level.
Look at it talking to you.”
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