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27-699: The nation consists of roughly 2,000 members, living both on and off reserve. Its traditional language is Babine-Witsuwit'en , a Northern Athabaskan language . It was initially created in December 1957 by legislation from the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada which amalgamated the Fort Babine and Old Fort Bands. It is currently at stage 4 of the British Columbia Treaty Negotiation Process . Woyenne, with approximately 940 residents,

54-563: A brother cannot exist without someone else to be in relation to. Thus, brother requires possessive morphology, as exampled in səɬtsen 'my brother'. The basic lexical verb in Witsuwitʼen is the verb theme, a unit composed of two parts: a verbal root and required thematic prefixes. Verbal morpheme order is stable throughout the Athabaskan family; thus, the template of the Witstuwitʼen verb

81-431: A common distinction is alienable and inalienable possession . Alienability refers to the ability to dissociate something from its parent; in this case, a quality from its owner. When something is inalienably possessed, it is usually an attribute. For example, John's big nose is inalienably possessed because it cannot (without surgery) be removed from John; it is simply a quality that he has. In contrast, 'John's briefcase'

108-637: A directional root, prefixes which describe distance, and suffixes which indicate motion or rest. Like most Athabaskan languages, basic word order in Babine-Witsuwitʼen is Subject-Object-Verb (SOV), demonstrated in the example below. Mary Mary dilhtsen 3SG . REFL .brother yikʼëntsiyʼ 3SG .loves. 3SG Mary dilhtsen yikʼëntsiyʼ Mary 3SG.REFL.brother 3SG.loves.3SG 'Mary loves her own brother.' Babine-Witsuwitʼen uses verbal morphology to express grammatical roles. Subjects of transitive and intransitive constructions are marked in

135-399: A friend" can be expressed by the sentence у меня есть друг u menya yest drug , which literally means "at me there is a friend". The same is true of Hebrew, e.g. "I have a dog", יש לי כלב, yesh li kelev , which literally means "there is for me a dog". Latvian , Irish , Turkish and Uralic languages (such as Hungarian and Finnish ) use an existential clause to assess a possession since

162-471: A possessive clitic , 's ; a preposition, of ; and adjectives , my , your , his , her , etc. Predicates denoting possession may be formed either by using a verb such as English have or by other means, such as existential clauses (as is usual in languages such as Russian). Some languages have more than two possessive classes. In Papua New Guinea , for example, Anêm has at least 20 and Amele has 32. There are many types of possession, but

189-418: A separation movement in the community of Wit'at. In fact, some people in this community will refer to themselves as "Wit'at Nation." Tachet also has approximately 130 permanent residents, a satellite band office, a water treatment plant and a convenience store. The Lake Babine Nation has traditionally comprised four clans: Babine-Witsuwit%27en language Babine–Witsuwitʼen or Nadotʼen-Wetʼsuwetʼen

216-465: A similar situation. Witsuwitʼen and Babine both have six underlying vowels in its inventory. Witsuwitʼen lexical categories include nouns , verbs , adjectives , and postpositions . Directional terms are considered to be a lexical group in Witsuwitʼen found throughout lexical categories. Witsuwitʼen nouns are only inflected for possession , and no case marking exists in Witsuwitʼen. Possessive morphology takes different forms depending on whether

243-461: Is adjacent to the community of Burns Lake, British Columbia , but has its own preschool, kindergarten, daycare, and adult learning centre. The Nation's main band office is located in Woyenne. Wit'at (Fort Babine) has approximately 60 permanent residents, an elementary school, a health clinic, a water treatment plant and a satellite band office. Because the forced amalgamation in the 1950s, there has been

270-490: Is alienably possessed because it can be separated from John. Many languages make the distinction as part of their grammar, typically by using different affixes for alienable and inalienable possession. For example, in Mikasuki (a Muskogean language of Florida ), ac-akni (inalienable) means 'my body', but am-akni (alienable) means 'my meat'. English does not have any way of making such distinctions (the example from Mikasuki

297-514: Is an Athabaskan language spoken in the Central Interior of British Columbia . Its closest relative is Carrier . Because of this linguistic relationship together with political and cultural ties, Babine–Witsuwitʼen is often referred to as Northern Carrier or Western Carrier . Specialist opinion is, however, that it should be considered a separate, though related, language (Kari 1975, Story 1984, Kari and Hargus 1989). A term used briefly in

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324-528: Is an asymmetric relationship between two constituents, the referent of one of which (the possessor ) in some sense possesses (owns, has as a part, rules over, etc.) the referent of the other (the possessed ). Possession may be marked in many ways, such as simple juxtaposition of nouns , possessive case , possessed case , construct state (as in Arabic and Nêlêmwa ), or adpositions ( possessive suffixes , possessive adjectives ). For example, English uses

351-474: Is an endangered language . It is spoken by a minority of the population, primarily elders. There are 161 fluent and 159 partial speakers of the Babine dialect and 131 fluent and 61 partial speakers of the Witsuwitʼen dialect. At most, a handful of children are still speaking the language. Babine-Witsuwitʼen is classified as Northern Athabaskan, in the same linguistic subgrouping as Dakelh and Chilcotin (though

378-580: Is clear to English-speakers only because there happen to be two different words in English that translate -akni in the two senses: both Mikasuki words could be translated as 'my flesh', and the distinction would then disappear in English). Possessive pronouns in Polynesian languages such as Hawaiian and Māori are associated with nouns distinguishing between o -class, a -class and neutral pronouns , according to

405-589: Is used in Modern Mansi . Locative possessive is used in some Uralic languages . Many languages have verbs that can be used to form clauses denoting possession. For example, English uses the verb have for that purpose, French uses avoir etc. There are often alternative ways of expressing such relationships (for example, the verbs possess and belong and others can be used in English in appropriate contexts: see also have got ). In some languages, different possession verbs are used, depending on whether

432-413: Is very similar to other Athabaskan languages. Prefixes which are furthest away from the lexical stem display more variability. The Witsuwitʼen verb consists of a lexical root and an aspectual, tense, or modal affix (most often a suffix). All Witsuwitʼen verbs carry tense and subject inflection; there is no Witsuwitʼen equivalent to the English infinitive . Postpositional object marking is demonstrated in

459-424: The referent is alienable or inalienable . cʼəni trap.bait cʼəni trap.bait 'trap bait' s- 1SG . POSS - əɬtsen brother s- əɬtsen 1SG.POSS- brother 'my brother' Because trap bait is an alienable entity which need not be possessed by anyone/anything, it does not include any possessive morphology but stands alone in its bare form. In contrast, brother is an inalienable entity;

486-506: The 1990s is Bulkley Valley – Lakes District Language , abbreviated BVLD. Ethnologue uses the bare name Babine for the language as a whole, not just for the Babine dialect. As its name suggests, Babine–Witsuwitʼen consists of two main dialects: The two dialects are very similar and are distinguished primarily by the fact that in Babine but not in Witsuwitʼen the Athabaskan front velar series have become palatal affricates. Like most languages native to British Columbia, Babine–Witsuwitʼen

513-497: The examples below. Postpositions can stand by themselves, as in the example ' 3s was playing with it ,' or attach to the verbal complex. Yi -lh with- 3SG niwilyekh. 3SG -plays Yi -lh niwilyekh. with-3SG 3SG-plays '3s was playing with it .' Complex directional systems and directional terms have been described in Ahtna , Slavey , Kaska , Koyukon , Tsek'ene , and Witsuwitʼen. Directional terms are composed of

540-591: The languages reject this classification. All agree that the differences between Babine and Witsuwitʼen are small and that the major split is between Babine and Witsuwitʼen on the one hand and Carrier proper on the other hand. The distinction is because speakers of Babine and of Carrier proper call themselves and their language Dakelh but that speakers of Witsuwitʼen do not. Witsuwitʼen has 35 consonants. Aspirated and ejective labials are rarer than other consonants. The ejective consonants are lenis and may be perceived as voiced; see neighboring Gitxsan language for

567-605: The latter is far more distinctly separate from Babine-Witsuwitʼen). Several non-specialist sources (the First Peoples' Heritage Language and Culture Council, the British Columbia Ministry of Education, and the University of British Columbia Museum of Anthropology) classify Witsuwitʼen as one language and Babine as a distinct language, either on its own or together with Carrier proper under the name Dakelh . Experts on

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594-507: The object is animate or inanimate , as can be seen in two examples from Georgian : Since a dog is animate and a computer is not, different verbs are used. However some nouns in Georgian, such as car , are treated as animate even though they appear to refer to an inanimate object. In some languages, possession relationships are indicated by existential clauses . For example, in Russian , "I have

621-456: The possessable and the unpossessable. Possessable things include farm animals, tools, houses, family members and money, but wild animals, landscape features and weather phenomena are examples of what cannot be possessed. That means basically that in such languages, saying my sister is grammatically correct but not my land . Instead, one would have to use a circumlocution such as the land that I own . Greater and lesser possession (in quantity)

648-548: The possessor is human, but it distinguishes inherent from non-inherent possession when the possessor is not human. Inherently-possessed nouns are marked with the prefix ŋa- , as in (ka) ŋalaka '(tree) branch', (lôm) ŋatau '(men's house) owner' and (talec) ŋalatu '(hen's) chick'. Adjectives that are derived from nouns (as inherent attributes of other entities) are also so marked, as in ŋadani 'thick, dense' (from dani 'thicket') or ŋalemoŋ 'muddy, soft' (from lemoŋ 'mud'). Many languages, such as Maasai , distinguish between

675-525: The property of requiring obligatory possession are notionally inalienably possessed, but the fit is rarely, if ever, perfect. Another distinction, similar to that between alienable and inalienable possession, is made between inherent and non-inherent possession. In languages that mark the distinction, inherently-possessed nouns, such as parts of wholes, cannot be mentioned without indicating their dependent status. Yagem of Papua New Guinea , for instance, distinguishes alienable from inalienable possession when

702-414: The relationship of possessor and possessed. The o -class possessive pronouns are used if the possessive relationship cannot be begun or ended by the possessor. Obligatory possession is sometimes called inalienable possession . The latter, however, is a semantic notion that largely depends on how a culture structures the world, while obligatory possession is a property of morphemes. In general, nouns with

729-529: The same way and appear in identical positions within the sentence, while objects of transitive constructions may differ in position and occasionally in morphological form. Subjects are marked in different places within the verbal complex, with 1st and 2nd person subjects appearing more closely to the verb stem and 3rd person subjects and direct objects further to the left. Two object prefixes [ hiy- ] and [y-]: Hiy -ïtsʼoldeh. Hiy -ïtsʼoldeh. Possession (linguistics) In linguistics , possession

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