| Tsetsaut | |
|---|---|
| Tsʼetsaʼut | |
| Wetaŀ, Wetaɬ, Wetał | |
| Pronunciation | [wetaɬ] |
| Native to | Canada, United States |
| Region | Northern British Columbia, Alaska |
| Ethnicity | Tsetsaut |
| Extinct | 1927 [1] |
Dené–Yeniseian?
| |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | txc |
txc | |
| Glottolog | tset1236 |
 Tsetsaut is classified as Extinct by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger [2] | |
The Tsetsaut language is an extinct Athabascan language formerly spoken by the now-extinct Tsetsaut in the Behm and Portland Canal area of Southeast Alaska and northwestern British Columbia. Virtually everything known of the language comes from the limited material recorded by Franz Boas in 1894 from two Tsetsaut slaves of the Nisga'a, which is enough to establish that Tsetsaut formed its own branch of Athabaskan. It is not known precisely when the language became extinct, but it was around the 1930s. [2] [3] One speaker was still alive in 1927. [1] The Nisga'a name for the Tsetsaut people is "Jits'aawit" [4]
Contents
The Tsetsaut referred to themselves as the Wetaŀ. The English name Tsetsaut is an anglicization of [tsʼətsʼaut], "those of the interior", used by the Gitxsan and Nisga'a to refer to the Athabaskan-speaking people to the north and east of them, including not only the Tsetsaut but some Tahltan and Sekani.
