The Xaadas people’s language is spoken on the Queen Charlotte Islands in British Columbia, as well as in the extreme southern portion of Alaska on Prince Wales Island.

The word for Haida in the northern, Massett dialect is x̱at’ee. In the southern, Skidegate dialect, Haida is x̱aaydag̱̱aay. The people of Alaska speak either a northwestern dialect (with some features shared with Skidgate), and call themselves K’iis Xaat’aagang; or the Northeastern dialect (similar to Masset), Kasaan. In the charts below, it is my understanding that all the northern dialects have the same sounds. Information on K’iis Xaat’aagang and Kasaan was kindly provided by Kawan Sangaa of Hydaburg.

The language is called Hlg̱aagilda X̱aayda Kil in Skidegate dialect and X̱aad Kil in Massett.

Historically, there have been many writing systems, and also others invented by linguists or scholars, I will try to include them all as I learn about them. In Canada, a modification of the Enrico system is popular, while in the U.S., the Alaska Native Language Center (or ANLC) has developed a different system. Note that in Massett, ‹g›~‹G› and ‹x›~‹X› may be different sounds; inside-word capital letters are occasionally used for borrowed Skidegate sounds.

Note: There are several Roman Orthography conventions on this site that may require further explanation. On the charts below, there is lots of phonetic terminology that may not be familiar to everyone.

Notes

1. There is a consistant correspondance between pharyngeal ‹g̱› and ‹x̱› in northern dialects, and uvular ‹g̱› and ‹x̱› in Skidegate. There are some rare occasions where the northern dialects have borrowed in uvular sounds, which are written with capitals in B.C., and with a circumflex accent in Alaska. This is the explanation as provided by Ways of Writing Haida. In Eastman (1991:6), who on the whole uses the ANLC orthography, ‹G› and ‹X› are typographical compromises of ANLC ‹g̱› and ‹x̱›.
2. Great care must be taken in computing with the Massett orthography as ‹G› and ‹X› are not treated as separate sounds from ‹g› and ‹x› by software.
3. The previous ‹7› symbol for a glottal stop has been recently replaced with an apostrophe in the official orthography.

Notes

1. There is a consistant correspondance between pharyngeal ‹g̱› and ‹x̱› in northern dialects, and uvular ‹g̱› and ‹x̱› in Skidegate. There are some rare occasions where the northern dialects have borrowed in uvular sounds, which are written with capitals in B.C., and with a circumflex accent in Alaska. This is the explanation as provided by Ways of Writing Haida. In Eastman (1991:6), who on the whole uses the ANLC orthography, ‹G› and ‹X› are typographical compromises of ANLC ‹g̱› and ‹x̱›.
2. ‹ch› is written at the beginning of a syllable, ‹ts› at the end.
3. The ANLC uses a hyphen to break up diagraphs. So while ‹ng› or ‹p’› are single sounds, in ‹n-g› the /n/ and /g/ are pronounced separately, same with ‹p-’› for /p/ plus /’/.

Notes

1. The previous ‹7› symbol for a glottal stop has been recently replaced with an apostrophe in the official orthography.
2. The new official orthography allows capitalisation of words. The earlier “always-capital” ‹G̱› now has a lowercase form ‹g̱› as well.
3. Occasionally, tone may be written to disambiguate to otherwise identical words. Low tone is written with a gràve accent, and high tone with an acúte.
4. The sound [ŋ] is written ‹ng› when it is phonologically associated with a preceding ‹a›. Otherwise it is written ‹ng.›
5. The reduced vowel “schwa” is written either ‹a›, ‹i›, or ‹l› depending on the preceding letter:
   • After {j, ts, ts’, s}, schwa is written ‹i›, ‹ki› is pronounced /ki/, but ‹ji› is /jə/.
   • After {dl, tl, tl’, hl, l ’l}, schwa is written ‹l›, ‹tll› is pronounced /tlə/.
   • After any other consonant (except for {w, ’w, y, ’y}), schwa is written ‹a›, ‹wa› is pronounced /wa/, but ‹ga› is /gə/.

Notes

1. From Bringhurst (1999:418-419). Notice that this orthography does not have long /ee/, marked accent, or the pharyngeal fricative. That the pharyngeal is missing is because Bringhurst designed his orthography for the southern dialect, but did include ‹‘› to represent the pharyngeal stop “on the few occasions where I wanted to distinguish northern from southern gh” (1999:416). The glottalised nasals and resonants (except for ll) are shown here in parentheses as they do not appear in the “Appendix 1: Haida Spelling and Pronunciation” (1999:415-416) chart, although he does allude to their existence later in the Appendix. A mid-level dot is used to separate digraphs, so l·l is /l/ + /l/, not /’l/.

Notes

1. As can be seen, Swanton’s orthography was quite over elaborate on vowels, but misses a few consonants, like the glottal stop and the glottalised resonants. He did differentiate between the pharyngeal stop and its uvular counterpart, but merely hinted that “in the Masset dialect; x is also pronounced softer, more like h.” Swanton (1905:6)

Last Update: October 24, 2008