Innu-aimun or Montagnais is an Algonquian language spoken by over 11,000 people,^[1] called the Innu, in Labrador and Quebec in Eastern Canada. The Algonquian (also Algonkian, and pronounced both and) languages are a subfamily of Native American languages that includes most of the languages in the Algic The Innu are the indigenous inhabitants of an area they refer to as Nitassinan, which comprises most of what other Canadians refer to as eastern Quebec Modern Labrador Just like its island neighbour Newfoundland early settlement in Labrador was tied to the sea as demonstrated by the Montagnais, Innu and Quebec (kwɨˈbɛk Country to "Dominion of Canada" or "Canadian Federation" or anything else please read the Talk Page It is a member of the Cree-Montagnais-Naskapi dialect continuum and is spoken in various dialects depending on the community. Cree (also known as Cree-Montagnais Cree-Montagnais-Naskapi is the name for a group of closely-related Algonquian languages spoken by approximately 117000 people across The Naskapi are the indigenous Innu inhabitants of an area they refer to as Nitassinan, which comprises most of what other Canadians refer to as eastern

Literature

In recent years, the Innu-aimun language has had considerable exposure in the popular culture of Canada and France due to the success of the rock music band Kashtin and the later solo careers of its founders Claude McKenzie and Florent Vollant. Country to "Dominion of Canada" or "Canadian Federation" or anything else please read the Talk Page This article is about the country For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic France topics. Kashtin were a Canadian Folk rock duo in the 1980s and 1990s one of Canada's most famous and influential First Nations musical groups Claude McKenzie (born 1967 in Schefferville, Quebec) is a Canadian Singer-songwriter. Florent Vollant (born Labrador, August 10, 1959 is a Canadian Singer-songwriter. Widely heard hit songs with Innu-language lyrics have included Ish-kuess ("Girl"), E Uassiuian ("My Childhood"),Tipatshimun ("Song of the devil") and in particular Akua tuta ("Take care of yourself"), which appeared on soundtrack compilations for the popular television series Due South and the documentary Music for The Native Americans. This article concerns the television program For the television listings magazine see Due South Magazine Due South is an award-winning Music for The Native Americans is a 1994 album by Robbie Robertson, compiling music written by Robertson and other colleagues (billed as the Red Road The lyrics of Akua Tuta are featured on over 50 websites, making this one of the most broadly accessible pieces of text written in any native North American language. Florent Vollant has also rendered several well known Christmas carols into Innu in his 1999 album Nipaiamianan. A Christmas carol (also called a Noël) is a carol ( Song or Hymn) whose lyrics are on the theme of Christmas, or the winter [1]

Phonology

Innu-aimun has the following phonemes (written using the standard orthography, with IPA equivalents in brackets):

The voiceless stops are voiced to [b d j g gʷ] between vowels. In Phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a Consonant articulated with both Lips The bilabial consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior Alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli (the sockets Postalveolar consonants are Consonants articulated with the tongue near or touching the back of the Alveolar ridge, placing them a bit further back in the Glottal consonants are Consonants articulated with the Glottis. The term labiovelar is ambiguous It may mean labial-velar (a Consonant made at two places of articulation, one at the lips and the other at the soft A nasal consonant (also called nasal stop or nasal continuant) is produced with a lowered velum in the mouth allowing air to escape freely through the A stop, plosive, or occlusive is a Consonant sound produced by stopping the airflow in the Vocal tract. Fricatives are Consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together Laterals are "L"-like Consonants pronounced with an occlusion made somewhere along the axis of the tongue while air from the lungs escapes at one side or both

• Long vowels: î /i/, e /e~ɛ/, â /a/, û /o/
• Short vowels: i /ɪ~ə/, a /ʌ~ə/, u /o~ʊ~u/

Grammar

Innu-aimun is a polysynthetic, head-marking language with relatively free word order. Polysynthetic languages are highly Synthetic languages ie languages in which words are composed of many Morphemes Definition The degree of A head-marking Language is one where the grammatical marks showing relations between different constituents of a phrase tend to be placed on the heads In Linguistics, word order typology refers to the study of the different ways in which languages arrange the constituents of their sentences relative to each other and the systematic Its three basic parts of speech are nouns, verbs, and particles. Nouns are grouped into two genders, animate and inanimate, and may carry affixes indicating plurality, possession, obviation, and location. In Linguistics, grammatical genders, sometimes also called Noun classes are classes of nouns reflected in the behavior of associated words every noun must belong Verbs are divided into four classes based on their transitivity: animate intransitive (AI), inanimate intransitive (II), transitive inanimate (TI), and transitive animate (TA). Verbs may carry affixes indicating agreement (with both subject and object arguments), tense, mood, and inversion. Two different sets, or orders, of verbal affixes are used depending on the verb's syntactic context. In simple main clauses, the verb is marked using affixes of the independent order, while in subordinate clauses and content-word questions, affixes of the conjunct order are used.

References

• Clarke, Sandra. 1982. North-West River (Sheshatshit) Montagnais: A grammatical sketch. National Museum of Man Mercury Series, 80. Ottawa: National Museums of Canada.
• Clarke, Sandra, and Marguerite MacKenzie. 2005. Montagnais/Innu-aimun (Algonquian). In Geert Booij et al. (eds. ), Morphology: An international handbook on inflection and word formation, vol. 2, 1411-1421. Berlin; New York: Walter de Gruyter.
• Clarke, Sandra, and Marguerite MacKenzie. 2006. Labrador Innu-aimun: An introduction to the Sheshatshiu dialect. St. John's, Newfoundland: Department of Linguistics, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

Notes

1. ^ ^{a b} Statistics Canada 2006

External links

• Innu Aimun orthography and phonology
• Native Languages page for Montagnais Innu
• Ethnologue entry for Montagnais