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51-573: Chipewyan is spoken over the largest area of any North American native language, while Navajo is spoken by the largest number of people of any native language north of Mexico. The word Athabaskan is an anglicized version of a Cree language name for Lake Athabasca ( Moose Cree : Āðapāskāw '[where] there are reeds one after another') in Canada . Cree is one of the Algonquian languages and therefore not itself an Athabaskan language. The name

102-490: A language isolate . In order to emphasise the exclusion of Haida, Campbell refers to the language family as Athabaskan–Eyak–Tlingit rather than Na-Dene . In 2010 Jeff Leer published extensive primary materials on what he calls PAET (Proto-Athabaskan–Eyak–Tlingit). In 2008, Edward Vajda of Western Washington University presented evidence suggesting that the Na-Dene languages (Athabaskan–Eyak–Tlingit) might be related to

153-412: A combination of three distinct classes of morphemes and are not found in any other Native American language family. The phoneme system contains a large number of dorsal (velar or uvular) consonants (fronting in many modern Athabaskan languages to palatals and velars, correspondingly) as well as a general absence of labial obstruents (except where /b/ has arisen from *w). In the historical phonology there

204-570: A number of linguists. It was proposed in a 2014 paper that the Na-Dene languages of North America and the Yeniseian languages of Siberia had a common origin in a language spoken in Beringia , between the two continents. Edward Sapir originally constructed the term Na-Dene to refer to a combined family of Athabaskan, Tlingit, and Haida (the existence of the Eyak language was not known to him at

255-521: A number of other well-known linguists, including Bernard Comrie , Johanna Nichols , Victor Golla, Michael Fortescue , and Eric Hamp . The conclusion of this seminar was that the comparison with Yeniseic data shows that Haida cannot be classified in a genealogical unit with Athabaskan–Eyak–Tlingit. A link between the Na–Dené languages and Sino-Tibetan languages, known as Sino–Dené was proposed by Edward Sapir . Around 1920 Sapir became convinced that Na-Dené

306-419: A result, Dënesųłinë́ has 24 phonemic vowels: Dënesųłinë́ also has 9 oral and nasal diphthongs of the form vowel + /j/ . Dënesųłinë́ has two tones: Download coordinates as: Na-Dene languages Na-Dene ( / ˌ n ɑː d ɪ ˈ n eɪ / NAH -dih- NAY ; also Nadene , Na-Dené , Athabaskan–Eyak–Tlingit , Tlina–Dene ) is a family of Native American languages that includes at least

357-503: Is a widespread tendency, observable across many Athabaskan languages, for phonemic tonal distinctions to arise from glottal features originally found at the end of the syllable. The glottal features in question are often evident in Eyak or Tlingit. These languages are typologically unusual in containing extensive prefixation yet being SOV and postpositional, features normally associated with suffixing languages. A genealogical connection between

408-569: Is also debated, since it may fall in either the Pacific Coast group – if that exists – or into the Northern group. The records of Nicola are so poor – Krauss describes them as "too few and too wretched" (Krauss 2005) – that it is difficult to make any reliable conclusions about it. Nicola may be intermediate between Kwalhioqua–Tlatskanai and Chilcotin . Similarly to Nicola, there is very limited documentation on Tsetsaut . Consequently, it

459-624: Is an old stem for “person, people” which, as suffix or prefix, is frequently used in Athabaskan in that sense. It is cognate with H. [= Haida] na "to dwell; house" and Tl. [= Tlingit] na “people”. The compound term Na-dene thus designates by means of native stems the speakers of the three languages concerned, besides continuing the use of the old term Dene for the Athabaskan branch of the stock. In its uncontroversial core, Na-Dene consists of two branches, Tlingit and Athabaskan–Eyak: For linguists who follow Edward Sapir in connecting Haida to

510-530: Is an outline of the classification according to Keren Rice , based on those published in Goddard (1996) and Mithun (1999). It represents what is generously called the "Rice–Goddard–Mithun" classification (Tuttle & Hargus 2004:73), although it is almost entirely due to Keren Rice. Branches 1–7 are the Northern Athabaskan (areal) grouping. Kwalhioqua–Clatskanai (#7) was normally placed inside

561-415: Is debatably part of the Pacific Coast subgroup, but has marginally more in common with the Northern Athabaskan languages than it does with the Pacific Coast languages (Leer 2005). It thus forms a notional sort of bridge between the Northern Athabaskan languages and the Pacific Coast languages, along with Nicola (Krauss 1979/2004). Using computational phylogenetic methods, Sicoli & Holton (2014) proposed

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612-537: Is difficult to place it in the family with much certainty. Athabaskanists have concluded that it is a Northern Athabaskan language consistent with its geographical occurrence, and that it might have some relation to its distant neighbor Tahltan. Tsetsaut, however, shares its primary hydronymic suffix ("river, stream") with Sekani, Beaver, and Tsuut'ina – PA *-ɢah – rather than with that of Tahltan, Tagish, Kaska, and North and South Tutchone – PA *-tuʼ (Kari 1996; Kari, Fall, & Pete 2003:39). The ambiguity surrounding Tsetsaut

663-556: Is distantly related to the Athabaskan–Eyak group to form the Na-Dene family , also known as Athabaskan–Eyak–Tlingit (AET). With Jeff Leer 's 2010 advances, the reconstructions of Na-Dene (or Athabascan–Eyak–Tlingit) consonants, this latter grouping is considered by Alaskan linguists to be a well-demonstrated family. Because both Tlingit and Eyak are fairly remote from the Athabaskan languages in terms of their sound systems, comparison

714-656: Is one of the three main groups of Native languages spoken in the Americas. Contemporary supporters of Greenberg's theory, such as Merritt Ruhlen , have suggested that the Na-Dené language family represents a distinct migration of people from Asia into the New World that occurred six to eight thousand years ago, placing it around four thousand years later than the previous migration into the Americas by Amerind speakers; this remains an unproven hypothesis. Ruhlen speculates that

765-752: Is the reconstructed ancestor of the Athabaskan languages. Chipewyan language Chipewyan / ˌ tʃ ɪ p ə ˈ w aɪ ə n / or Dënesųłinë́ (ethnonym: Dënesųłinë́ yatié IPA: [tènɛ̀sũ̀ɬìné jàtʰìɛ́] ), often simply called Dëne , is the language spoken by the Chipewyan people of northwestern Canada . It is categorized as part of the Northern Athabaskan language family . It has nearly 12,000 speakers in Canada, mostly in Saskatchewan , Alberta , Manitoba and

816-448: Is usually done between them and the reconstructed Proto-Athabaskan language. This resembles both Tlingit and Eyak much more than most of the daughter languages in the Athabaskan family. Although Ethnologue still gives the Athabaskan family as a relative of Haida in their definition of the Na-Dene family, linguists who work actively on Athabaskan languages discount this position. The Alaska Native Language Center , for example, takes

867-498: Is why it is placed in its own subgroup in the Rice–Goddard–Mithun classification. For detailed lists including languages, dialects, and subdialects, see the respective articles on the three major groups: Northern Athabaskan , Pacific Coast Athabaskan , Southern Athabaskan . For the remainder of this article, the conventional three-way geographic grouping will be followed except as noted. The Northern Athabaskan languages are

918-592: The American Southwest as far as northern Mexico . The southwestern division of Athabaskan is also called Southern Athabaskan or Apachean , and includes Navajo and all the Apache languages. Eyak was spoken in south-central Alaska; the last first language speaker died in 2008. Navajo is by far the most widely spoken language of the Na-Dene family, spoken in Arizona , New Mexico , and other regions of

969-546: The Athabaskan languages , Eyak , and Tlingit languages. Haida was formerly included but is now considered doubtful. By far the most widely spoken Na-Dene language today is Navajo , also the most spoken indigenous language north of Mexico . In February 2008, a proposal connecting Na-Dene (excluding Haida) to the Yeniseian languages of central Siberia into a Dené–Yeniseian family was published and well received by

1020-708: The La Ronge Population Centre had 55 and Meadow Lake had 30. 3,050 were in the Lake Athabasca - Fond du Lac River area including Black Lake and Wollaston Lake in the communities of: 3,920 were in the upper Churchill River area including Peter Pond Lake , Churchill Lake , Lac La Loche , Descharme Lake, Garson Lake and Turnor Lake in the communities of: Two isolated communities are in northern Manitoba. The two Manitoban communities use Dënesųłinë́ syllabics to write their language. The Wood Buffalo-Cold Lake Economic Region in

1071-626: The Northwest Territories . It has official status only in the Northwest Territories, alongside eight other aboriginal languages : Cree , Tlicho , Gwich'in , Inuktitut , Inuinnaqtun , Inuvialuktun , North Slavey and South Slavey . Most Chipewyan people now use Dëne and Dënesųłinë́ to refer to themselves as a people and to their language, respectively. The Saskatchewan communities of Fond-du-Lac, Black Lake, Wollaston Lake and La Loche are among these. In

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1122-526: The Tanana Chiefs Conference and Alaska Native Language Center prefer the spelling Athabascan . Ethnologue uses Athapaskan in naming the language family and individual languages. Although the term Athabaskan is prevalent in linguistics and anthropology, there is an increasing trend among scholars to use the terms Dené and Dené languages , which is how many of their native speakers identify it. They are applying these terms to

1173-638: The Yeniseian (or Yeniseic) languages of Siberia , the only living representative of which is the Ket language . Key evidence by current comparative methodologies includes homologies in verb prefixes and also a systematic correspondence between the distribution of Ket tones and consonant articulations found in Athabaskan–Eyak–Tlingit. Vajda's paper has been favorably reviewed by several experts on Na-Dene and Yeniseic languages, including Michael Krauss , Jeff Leer, James Kari , and Heinrich Werner, as well as

1224-491: The Yukon and Northwest Territories , as well as in the provinces of British Columbia , Alberta , Saskatchewan and Manitoba . Five Athabaskan languages are official languages in the Northwest Territories, including Chipewyan ( Dënesųłıné ), Dogrib or Tłı̨chǫ Yatıì , Gwich'in (Kutchin, Loucheux), and the Northern and Southern variants of Slavey . The seven or more Pacific Coast Athabaskan languages are spoken in

1275-641: The 2011 Canada Census 11,860 people chose Dënesųłinë́ as their mother tongue. 70.6% were located in Saskatchewan and 15.2% were located in Alberta. Not all were from the historical Chipewyan regions south and east of Great Slave Lake . Approximately 11,000 of those who chose Dënesųłinë́ as their mother tongue in 2011 are Dëne/Chipewyan with 7,955 (72%) in Saskatchewan, 1,005 (9%) in Manitoba, 510 plus urban dwellers in Alberta and 260 plus urban dwellers in

1326-497: The American Southwest. All of these languages share a highly complex prefixing verb structure in which tense and mood markers are interdigitated between subject and object agreement markers. The morphological hallmark of the family is a series of prefixes found directly before the verb root that raise or lower the transitivity of the verb word. These prefixes, traditionally known as "classifiers", derive historically from

1377-495: The East Asia area such as Hmong-Mien, Altaic (which is actually a sprachbund ), Austroasiatic, Kra-Dai, Austronesian came through contact; but as there has been no recent contact between Sino-Tibetan, Na-Dené, and Yeniseian language families then any similarities these groups share must be residual. According to Joseph Greenberg 's controversial classification of the languages of Native North America, Na-Dené (including Haida)

1428-556: The Na-Dene languages, while mostly closely related to other North American indigenous peoples, derive around 10% of their ancestry from a Siberian source closely related to Koryaks not found in other Native American groups. The contact between the ancestors of Na-Dene speakers and this Siberian group is suggested to have occurred around 9,000-5,500 years ago. The urheimat (origin point of the family) has been suggested to have been in Alaska. A large southward migration of Athabaskan peoples

1479-545: The Na-Dené speakers may have arrived in boats, initially settling near the Haida Gwaii , now in British Columbia , Canada. Bouda, in various publications in the 1930s through the 1950s, described a linguistic network that (besides Yeniseian and Sino-Tibetan) also included Caucasian , and Burushaski , some forms of which have gone by the name of Sino-Caucasian. The works of R. Bleichsteiner and O.G. Tailleur,

1530-684: The Northern group – has been called a "cohesive complex" by Michael Krauss (1973, 1982). Therefore, the Stammbaumtheorie or family tree model of genetic classification may be inappropriate. The languages of the Southern branch are much more homogeneous and are the only clearly genealogical subgrouping. Debate continues as to whether the Pacific Coast languages form a valid genealogical grouping, or whether this group may instead have internal branches that are tied to different subgroups in Northern Athabaskan. The position of Kwalhioqua–Clatskanai

1581-492: The Northern languages. Reflecting an ancient migration of peoples, they are spoken by Native Americans in the American Southwest and the northwestern part of Mexico . This group comprises the six Southern Athabaskan languages and Navajo. The following list gives the Athabaskan languages organized by their geographic location in various North American states, provinces and territories (including some languages that are now extinct). Several languages, such as Navajo and Gwich'in, span

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1632-608: The Northwest Territories. The communities within the Dëne traditional areas are shown below: The Dënesųłinë́-speaking communities of Saskatchewan are located in the northern half of the province. The area from the upper Churchill River west of Pinehouse Lake all the way north to Lake Athabasca and from Lake Athabasca east to the north end of Reindeer Lake is home to 7410 people who chose Dënesųłinë́ as their mother tongue in 2011. Prince Albert had 265 residents who chose Dënesųłinë́ as their mother tongue in 2011, Saskatoon had 165,

1683-460: The Pacific Coast grouping, but a recent consideration by Krauss (2005) does not find it very similar to these languages. A different classification by Jeff Leer is the following, usually called the "Leer classification" (Tuttle & Hargus 2004:72–74): Neither subgrouping has found any significant support among other Athabaskanists. Details of the Athabaskan family tree should be regarded as tentative. As Tuttle and Hargus put it, "we do not consider

1734-655: The Pacific Northwest of the United States. These include Applegate, Galice, several Rogue River area languages, Upper Coquille, Tolowa, and Upper Umpqua in Oregon ; Eel River, Hupa, Mattole–Bear River, and Tolowa in northern California ; and possibly Kwalhioqua-Clatskanie in Washington . The seven Southern Athabaskan languages are isolated by considerable distance from both the Pacific Coast languages and

1785-707: The Sino–Dené hypothesis. Caveney considered a link between Sino-Tibetan, Na-Dené, and Yeniseian to be plausible but did not support the hypothesis that Sino-Tibetan and Na-Dené were related to the Caucasian languages (Sino–Caucasian and Dené–Caucasian). A 2023 analysis by David Bradley using the standard techniques of comparative linguistics supports a distant genetic link between the Sino-Tibetan, Na-Dené, and Yeniseian language families. Bradley argues that any similarities Sino-Tibetan shares with other language families of

1836-491: The Tlingit, Eyak and Athabaskan languages was suggested early in the 19th century, but not universally accepted until much later. Haida , with 15 fluent speakers (M. Krauss, 1995), was originally linked to Tlingit by Franz Boas in 1894. Both Haida and Tlingit were then connected to Athabaskan by Edward Sapir in 1915. Linguists such as Lyle Campbell (1997) today consider the evidence inconclusive. They have classified Haida as

1887-454: The above languages, Haida represents an additional branch, with Athabaskan–Eyak–Tlingit together forming the other. Dene or Dine (the Athabaskan languages) is a widely distributed group of Native languages spoken by associated peoples in Alberta , British Columbia , Manitoba , Northwest Territories , Nunavut , Saskatchewan , Yukon , Alaska , parts of Oregon , northern California , and

1938-452: The boundaries: these languages are repeated by location in this list. For alternative names for the languages, see the classifications given later in this article. Eyak and Athabaskan together form a genealogical linguistic grouping called Athabaskan–Eyak (AE) – well- demonstrated through consistent sound correspondences , extensive shared vocabulary, and cross-linguistically unique homologies in both verb and noun morphology . Tlingit

1989-494: The entire language family. For example, following a motion by attendees in 2012, the annual Athabaskan Languages Conference changed its name to the Dené Languages Conference. Linguists conventionally divide the Athabaskan family into three groups, based on geographic distribution: The 32 Northern Athabaskan languages are spoken throughout the interior of Alaska and the interior of northwestern Canada in

2040-401: The following classification for the Athabaskan languages based exclusively on typological (non-lexical) data. However, this phylogenetic study was criticized as methodologically flawed by Yanovich (2020), since it did not employ sufficient input data to generate a robust tree that does not depend on the initial choice of the "tree prior", i.e. the model for the tree generation. Proto-Athabaskan

2091-513: The largest group in the Athabaskan family, although this group varies internally about as much as do languages in the entire family. The urheimat of the Athabaskan family is most likely in the Tanana Valley of east-central Alaska. There are many homologies between Proto-Athabaskan vocabulary and patterns reflected in archaeological sites such as Upward Sun, Swan Point and Broken Mammoth (Kari 2010). The Northern Athabaskan group also contains

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2142-455: The late Sergei A. Starostin and Sergei L. Nikolayev have sought to confirm these connections. Others who have developed the hypothesis, often expanded to Dené–Caucasian, include J.D. Bengtson, V. Blažek, J.H. Greenberg (with M. Ruhlen ), and M. Ruhlen. George Starostin continues his father's work in Yeniseian, Sino-Caucasian and other fields. This theory is very controversial or viewed as obsolete by other linguists. Speakers of

2193-447: The most linguistically conservative languages, particularly Koyukon, Ahtna, Dena'ina, and Dakelh/Carrier (Leer 2008). Very little is known about Tsetsaut, and for this reason it is routinely placed in its own tentative subgroup. The Nicola language is so poorly attested that it is impossible to determine its position within the family. It has been proposed by some to be an isolated branch of Chilcotin. The Kwalhioqua–Clatskanie language

2244-785: The north eastern portion of Alberta from Fort Chipewyan to the Cold Lake area has the following communities. 510 residents of this region chose Dënesųłinë́ as their mother tongue in 2011. Three communities are located south of Great Slave Lake in Region 5. 260 residents of Region 5 chose Dënesųłinë́ as their mother tongue in 2011. The 39 consonants of Dënesųłinë́: The inter-dental series of ⟨ddh⟩ , ⟨tth⟩ , ⟨tthʼ⟩ , ⟨th⟩ , and ⟨dh⟩ corresponds to s-like sibilants in other Na-Dené languages. Dënesųłinë́ has vowels of six differing qualities. Most vowels can be either As

2295-422: The points of difference between the two models ... to be decisively settled and in fact expect them to be debated for some time to come." (Tuttle & Hargus 2004:74) The Northern group is particularly problematic in its internal organization. Due to the failure of the usual criteria of shared innovation and systematic phonetic correspondences to provide well-defined subgroupings, the Athabaskan family – especially

2346-534: The position that recent improved data on Haida have served to conclusively disprove the Haida-inclusion hypothesis. Haida has been determined to be unrelated to Athabaskan languages. A symposium in Alaska in February 2008 included papers on the Yeniseian and Na-Dené families. Edward Vajda of Western Washington University summarized ten years of research, based on verbal morphology and reconstructions of

2397-526: The proto-languages, indicating that these languages might be related. The internal structure of the Athabaskan language family is complex, and its exact shape is still a hotly debated issue among experts. The conventional three-way split into Northern, Pacific Coast, and Southern is essentially based on geography and the physical distribution of Athabaskan peoples rather than sound linguistic comparisons. Despite this inadequacy, current comparative Athabaskan literature demonstrates that most Athabaskanists still use

2448-461: The three-way geographic grouping rather than any of the proposed linguistic groupings given below, because none of them has been widely accepted. This situation will presumably change as both documentation and analysis of the languages improves. Besides the traditional geographic grouping described previously, there are a few comparatively based subgroupings of the Athabaskan languages. Below the two most current viewpoints are presented. The following

2499-406: The time). In his “The Na-Dene languages: A preliminary report”, he describes how he arrived at the term (Sapir 1915, p. 558): The name that I have chosen for the stock, Na-dene , may be justified by reference to no. 51 of the comparative vocabulary. Dene , in various dialectic forms, is a wide-spread Athabaskan term for “person, people”; the element *-ne ( *-n , *-η ) which forms part of it

2550-544: Was assigned by Albert Gallatin in his 1836 (written 1826) classification of the languages of North America. He acknowledged that it was his choice to use this name for the language family and the associated ethnic groups: "I have designated them by the arbitrary denomination of Athabascas, which derived from the original name of the lake." The four spellings— Athabaskan , Athabascan , Athapaskan , and Athapascan —are in approximately equal use. Particular communities may prefer one spelling over another (Krauss 1987). For example,

2601-595: Was more closely related to Sino-Tibetan than to other American families. He wrote a series of letters to Alfred Kroeber where he enthusiastically spoke of a connection between Na-Dene and "Indo-Chinese". In 1925, a supporting article summarizing his thoughts, albeit not written by him, entitled "The Similarities of Chinese and Indian Languages", was published in Science Supplements. Edward Vajda's Dené–Yeniseian proposal renewed interest among linguists such as Geoffrey Caveney (2014) to look into support for

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