Babine–Witsuwitʼen or Nadotʼen-Wetʼsuwetʼen is an Athabaskan language spoken in the Central Interior of British Columbia.
[3][4][5] A term used briefly in the 1990s is Bulkley Valley – Lakes District Language, abbreviated BVLD.
[13] The ejective consonants are lenis and may be perceived as voiced; see neighboring Gitxsan language for a similar situation.
[14][15] Witsuwitʼen lexical categories include nouns, verbs, adjectives, and postpositions.
[14] Possessive morphology takes different forms depending on whether the referent is alienable or inalienable.
The Witsuwitʼen verb consists of a lexical root and an aspectual, tense, or modal affix (most often a suffix).
[14] Like most Athabaskan languages, basic word order in Babine-Witsuwitʼen is Subject-Object-Verb (SOV), demonstrated in the example below.
[19] Athabaskan languages like Babine-Witstuwitʼen make use of two main argument transferring morphemes known as classifiers.
However, the term classifier is recognized among Athabaskanists as a misnomer; voice and valence markers are more appropriate descriptors.
The valence marker [l] is more complex in nature, indicating a combination of [ɬ] and [d] where a middle is built upon a causative.