Editing Tanacross language (section)

== Early research ==
In addition to the strictly linguistic resources to be discussed below, Isaac (1988) and Simeone (1995) provide important cultural background on the Tanacross community. The former is an [[oral history]] told by Chief Andrew Isaac, the last traditional chief of Tanacross. Though much of the text has been translated into English, the translation maintains much of the speech style of the original Tanacross language. The text contains many references to Tanacross flora and fauna, as well as cultural items. Simeone's book is an [[ethnography|ethnographic]] sketch written by an Episcopal lay worker who spent much of the 1970s living in [[Tanacross, Alaska|Tanacross village]]. Ethnographies of the eastern Alaska Athabaskan region, though not specific to Tanacross, can be found in McKennan (1959) and Andrews (1975). De Laguna & McClellan's (1960) field notes also contain extensive ethnographic information.

The earliest written record by far of the Tanacross language is the “Copper River Kolchan” vocabulary recorded in Wrangell (1839).<ref>Wrangell, Ferdinand Petrovich von. 1839. Statistische und ethnographische Nachrichten über die Russische Besitzungen an der Norwestküste von Amerika, ed. by K.G. von Baer & G. von Helmersen, 101-03, 259. Osnabrück: Biblio Verlag.</ref> This list was probably collected at Nuchek in [[Prince William Sound]], but its character is unmistakably Tanacross.  Another short (three typescript pages) word list was collected by J.T. Geoghegan (Geoghegan & Geoghegan 1904). David Shinen compiled a somewhat longer Tanacross word list from Mary Charlie and Oscar Isaac in Tanacross village,<ref>Shinen, David C. 1958. A word list of the [[Upper Tanana language|Nabesna]] dialect of the Alaska Athapaskans. Ms, Alaska Native Language Center Archives, Fairbanks.</ref> and a portion of this list was later published under the heading “Nabesna” in Hoijer (1963). More substantive documentation of Tanacross began with exploratory fieldwork by Krauss, who first called it “transitional Tanana”.<ref>Krauss, Michael E. 1962. [Tanacross materials]. Ms, Alaska Native Language Center Archives, Fairbanks.</ref> In the early 1970s Nancy McRoy compiled some textual materials with speaker Mary Charlie<ref>Charlie, Mary & Nancy McRoy. 1972. [Tanacross Texts]. Ms, Alaska Native Language Center Archives, Fairbanks.</ref> and a short wordlist containing about 400 items, mostly nouns,<ref>McRoy, Nancy. 1973. Beginning Tanacross Dictionary. Ms, Alaska Native Language Center Archives, Fairbanks.</ref> as well as some basic literacy materials. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Jeff Leer compiled further notes on [[Grammatical category|grammatical paradigms]]<ref>Leer, Jeff. 1982. Subject-classifier paradigms in Tanacross. Ms, Alaska Native Language Center Archives, Fairbanks.</ref> and [[Distinctive feature|phonological features]],<ref>Leer, Jeff. 1977. Stem Syllable Development in Tanacross and Upper Tanana. Ms, Alaska Native Language Center Archives, Fairbanks.</ref><ref>Leer, Jeff. 1982. Issues in Tanacross Orthography. Ms, Alaska Native Language Center Archives.</ref> including the three-way fricative voicing contrast. Marilyn Paul (1978) presents some notes compiled from a class taught by Leer at ANLC.<ref>Paul, Marilyn. 1978. [Tanacross Notes]. Manuscript, Alaska Native Language Archive</ref> Ron Scollon transcribed and translated a collection of texts from speaker Gaither Paul using a revised [[orthography]] which indicates [[tone (linguistics)|tone]].<ref>Paul, Gaither. 1979. The Story of How Dentalium Necklaces Came to the People. Ms, Alaska Native Language Center Archives, Fairbanks.</ref> Kari has compiled a preliminary stem list based on information collected from several speakers in the 1980s, but tone is not marked.<ref>Kari, James. 1991. Tanacross Stem List. Ms, Alaska Native Language Center Archives, Fairbanks.</ref> Alice Brean has compiled lexical and paradigmatic information.<ref>Brean, Alice  & James Kari. 1991. [Tanacross Language Notes]. Ms, Alaska Native Language Center Archives, Fairbanks.</ref> Minoura has compiled a short word list and information on tone.<ref>Minoura, Nobukatsu. 1991. [Tanacross Fieldnotes]. Ms, Alaska Native Language Center Archives, Fairbanks. 1994. A comparative phonology of the Upper Tanana Athabaskan dialects. Languages of the North Pacific Rim, ed. by O. Miyaoka, 159-96. (Hokkaido University Publications in Linguistics 7.). Sapporo: Department of Linguistics, Faculty of Letters, Hokkaido University.</ref> In spite of the various sources of lexical documentation, Krauss (p.c.) estimates than only twenty percent of the extant body of [[Lexicon|lexical]] information has been documented by linguists.

During the early 1990s John Ritter of the Yukon Native Language Center (YNLC) began a comprehensive study of Tanacross phonology in the early 1990s and developed a practical orthography. Tanacross speakers Irene Solomon Arnold and Jerry Isaac have participated in literacy workshops in [[Tok, Alaska|Tok]], [[Whitehorse, Yukon|Whitehorse]] and [[Dawson City]], resulting in the production of literacy materials with accompanying cassette tapes.<ref>Solomon, Irene. 1994. Tanacross Athabaskan Language Lessons. Whitehorse: Yukon Native Language Centre.</ref><ref>Solomon, Irene. 1996. Tanacross Listening Exercises. Whitehorse: Yukon Native Language Centre.</ref><ref>Isaac, Jerry. 1997. Tanacross Listening Exercises. Whitehorse: Yukon Native Language Centre.</ref> Solomon & Ritter (1997) provides crucial data for the description of [[Tone (linguistics)|tone]] phenomena.<ref>Solomon, Irene. 1997. Tanacross Diagnostics. Ms, Alaska Native Language Center Archives, Fairbanks.</ref> Phonology and morphology are described in Holton's 2000 University of California Santa Barbara dissertation.<ref>Holton, Gary. 2000. The Phonology and Morphology of the Tanacross Athabaskan Language. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of California, Santa Barbara.</ref> Semi-voiced fricatives are described by Holton (2001).<ref name="Holton, Gary 2001"/> The interaction of tone and intonation is described in Holton (2005).<ref>Holton, Gary. 2005. Pitch, tone and intonation in Tanacross. In Keren Rice & Sharon Hargus (eds.), Athabaskan Prosody, 249-75. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.</ref> Additional sound recordings and field notes are available at YNLC and the [[Alaska Native Language Archive]]. Since 2000 Irene Solomon has worked as a language specialist at the [[Alaska Native Language Center]] and has collaborated on a number of projects with linguist [[Gary Holton (linguist)|Gary Holton]], including a phrase book,<ref>Arnold, Irene Solomon, Gary Holton & Richard Thoman. 2003. Tanacross Phrase and Conversation Lessons. Fairbanks: Alaska Native Language Center.</ref> a learners' dictionary,<ref>Arnold, Irene, Richard Thoman & Gary Holton. 2009. Tanacross Learners' Dictionary: Dihtâad Xt'een Iin Anděg Dínahtlǎa'. Fairbanks: Alaska Native Language Center.</ref> and a multimedia description of the sound system.<ref>Holton, Gary, and Rick Thoman. 2008. [https://web.archive.org/web/20181115212251/https://www.uaf.edu/anlc/languages/tc/tss/ The Sounds of Tanacross]. Archived from the [https://www.uaf.edu/anlc/languages/tc/tss/ original] on 2018-11-15.</ref>