Tlingit language

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Tlingit
Lingít
Pronunciation	/ɬɪ̀nkɪ́tʰ/
Native to	United States, Canada
Region	Alaska, British Columbia, Yukon, Washington
Ethnicity	10,000 Tlingit (1995)[1]
Native speakers	~50 highly proficient first language speakers in United States, 10 highly proficient second language speakers (2020)[2] 120 in Canada (2016 census)[3]
Language family	Dené–Yeniseian? Na-Dene Tlingit
Writing system	Tlingit alphabet (Latin script)
Official status
Official language in	Alaska[4]
Language codes
ISO 639-2	tli
ISO 639-3	tli
Glottolog	tlin1245
ELP	Tlingit
Tlingit is classified as Critically Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger
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The Tlingit language (English: /ˈklɪŋkɪt/ ^ⓘ KLING-kit;^[5] Lingít Athapascan pronunciation: [ɬɪ̀nkɪ́tʰ])^[6] is spoken by the Tlingit people of Southeast Alaska and Western Canada and is a branch of the Na-Dene language family. Extensive effort is being put into revitalization programs in Southeast Alaska to revive and preserve the Tlingit language and culture.

Missionaries of the Russian Orthodox Church were the first to develop a written version of Tlingit by using the Cyrillic script to record and translate it when the Russian Empire had contact with Alaska and the coast of North America down to Sonoma County, California. After the Alaska Purchase, English-speaking missionaries from the United States developed a written version of the language with the Latin alphabet.