9-628: Skilak Lake ( Dena'ina : Q'es Dudilen Bena ) is a large lake on the Kenai Peninsula, Alaska . The lake is part of the Kenai River system but also contains glacial runoff, being fed by meltwater from Skilak Glacier . The water is exceptionally clear with a mostly rocky bottom, relatively free of aquatic vegetation. It is within the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge , and can be accessed by Skilak Lake Loop Road via
18-433: A Dena'ina artist, Argent Kvasnikoff, created a custom alphabet for the language. Denaʼina is a polysynthetic language where a single word can mean the entirety of an English sentence. nu- again- n- you- t- FUT - n- see- gh- FUT - sh- I- l- CL - 'ił see/ FUT nu- n- t- n- gh- sh- l- 'ił again- you- FUT- see- FUT- I- CL- see/FUT "I will see you again." Verbs are
27-550: Is the Athabaskan language of the region surrounding Cook Inlet . It is geographically unique in Alaska as the only Alaska Athabaskan language to include territory which borders salt water. Four dialects are usually distinguished: Of the total Denaʼina population of about 900 people, only 75–95 members still speak Denaʼina. James Kari has done extensive work on the language since 1972, including his edition with Alan Boraas of
36-492: The Sterling Highway . Maximum depth is 632 feet (193 m), it is 15 miles (24 km) long and up to 4 miles (6.4 km) wide in places. Early Russian explorers mistakenly believed Skilak and Tustumena Lake to be a single body of water. It is a popular destination for Alaskans due to it being only about a half-hour drive from Soldotna , and approximately two hours from Anchorage . There are two campgrounds at
45-406: The collected writings of Peter Kalifornsky in 1991. Joan M. Tenenbaum also conducted extensive field research on the language in the 1970s. The word Denaʼina is composed of the dena , meaning 'person' and the human plural suffix ina . While the apostrophe which joins the two parts of this word ordinarily indicates a glottal stop, most speakers pronounce this with a diphthong, so that
54-568: The e is considered a reduced vowel similar to the English schwa . In the Inland dialect, syllables at the end of a semantic unit are often longer, lower in pitch, and have longer rhymes. The onset of a syllable has consonant clusters of up to three, such as CCCVC, though these are rare and more commonly, a syllable onset is one or two consonants. Dena'ina uses a variant of the Latin alphabet, though
63-544: The lake, one is a developed campground with a host, the other un-hosted and with only basic facilities. There are many well-developed and maintained trails along the lake and its access road, as well as campgrounds and public-access cabins. This article about a location in the Kenai Peninsula Borough, Alaska is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Dena%CA%BCina language Denaʼina / d ɪ ˈ n aɪ n ə / , also Tanaina ,
72-522: The most elaborate part of speech in the Denaʼina language, which vary in verb paradigms which vary by subject, object, or aspect. The following example is of -lan the verb "to be" in the imperfective aspect and in the Nondalton dialect. esh lan esh lan I am ch'i lan ch'i lan we are in lan in lan you are eh lan eh lan you all are n lan n lan he/she/it
81-477: The second syllable of the word rhymes with English 'nine' (as in the older spelling Tanaina ). Denaʼina is one of seven Alaska Athabaskan languages which does not distinguish phonemic tone. The consonants of Denaʼina in practical orthography, with IPA equivalents. The 4 vowels of Denaʼina. Close vowels are more open in the environment of a uvular consonant. Generally, the vowels i, a, and u are considered 'long' vowels and are fully pronounced in words, however
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