Athabaskan ( / ˌ æ θ ə ˈ b æ s k ən / ATH -ə- BASK -ən ; also spelled Athabascan , Athapaskan or Athapascan , and also known as Dene ) is a large branch of the Na-Dene language family of North America , located in western North America in three areal language groups: Northern, Pacific Coast and Southern (or Apachean ). Kari and Potter (2010:10) place the total territory of the 53 Athabaskan languages at 4,022,000 square kilometres (1,553,000 sq mi).
39-461: Nondalton ( Dena'ina : Nuvendaltun or Nundaltin ) is a town on the west shore of Six Mile Lake in the Lake and Peninsula Borough, Alaska , United States. At the 2020 census , the population was 133, down from 164 in 2010. Nondalton is located at 59°58′1″N 154°51′6″W / 59.96694°N 154.85167°W / 59.96694; -154.85167 (59.967015, -154.851636). According to
78-433: 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
117-488: A household in the city was $ 19,583, and the median income for a family was $ 20,694. Males had a median income of $ 27,500 versus $ 11,250 for females. The per capita income for the city was $ 8,411. About 37.3% of families and 45.4% of the population were below the poverty line , including 51.7% of those under the age of eighteen and 39.1% of those 65 or over. Nondalton is an Athabascan Indian ( Tanaina and Iliamna ) village. The name means "lake after lake" in their language:
156-413: A post office attached, a state-certified public school providing pre-kindergarten through 12th grade instruction, an outpatient medical clinic with family social services, a maintained Russian Orthodox church , a fishing lodge, and a water purification plant. Uncertified water is usually piped to most houses; septic tanks are used for sewage; and electric power and telephone service is available. Nondalton
195-500: Is qi lan qi lan they are qi lan Athabaskan languages 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
234-569: 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
273-530: 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
312-416: 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
351-537: 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
390-615: 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
429-521: Is on a boil drinking water notice indefinitely. Nondalton is isolated: there are no highways or roads connecting it to other villages. The primary means of access and egress to the village is by airplane: a privately owned airport for single-engine craft services the village. Among the issues affecting the village at the start of the 21st century is the proposed Pebble Mine site in the vicinity of nearby Lake Iliamna . Dena%27ina language Denaʼina / d ɪ ˈ n aɪ n ə / , also Tanaina ,
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#1732776103206468-466: Is one of the Algonquian languages and therefore not itself an Athabaskan language. The name 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
507-550: 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
546-503: 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
585-498: 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
624-522: The United States Census Bureau , the village has a total area of 8.8 square miles (23 km), of which 8.4 square miles (22 km) is land and 0.4 square miles (1.0 km) (4.57%) is water. Nondalton first appeared on the 1920 U.S. Census as an unincorporated village. This was the original Nondalton village, approximately 2 miles north of the present village. The original site became Old Nondalton. Residents relocated in 1940 to
663-653: 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 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
702-740: The Northern and Southern variants of Slavey . The seven or more Pacific Coast Athabaskan languages are spoken in 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
741-684: 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
780-460: 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
819-593: The Pacific Coast languages and 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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#1732776103206858-452: 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
897-406: 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
936-568: 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
975-402: 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
1014-513: 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
1053-522: 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
1092-447: 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
1131-512: 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, 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
1170-422: 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
1209-422: The population were Hispanic or Latino of any race. There were 68 households, of which 47.1% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 36.8% were married couples living together, 11.8% had a female householder with no husband present, and 27.9% were non-families. 23.5% of all households were made up of individuals, and 4.4% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size
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1248-590: 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
1287-483: The present location of Nondalton. It formally incorporated in 1971. As of the census of 2000, there were 221 people, 68 households, and 49 families residing in the city. The population density was 26.4 inhabitants per square mile (10.2/km). There were 120 housing units at an average density of 14.4 units per square mile (5.6 units/km). The racial makeup of the city was 9.50% White, 89.14% Native American, 0.45% Pacific Islander, and 0.90% from two or more races. 0.45% of
1326-527: 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
1365-477: 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
1404-539: 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 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
1443-461: 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
1482-399: The village is situated along one of a line of lakes. Nondalton was first recorded in 1909. The village was originally located on the north shore of Six Mile Lake , but was moved to the present location in 1940, due to the depletion of wood and the growth of mud flats. Subsistence hunting and fishing are the major economic activities. Government is by tribal council. There is a food store with
1521-402: Was 3.25 and the average family size was 3.78. In the city, the age distribution of the population shows 39.8% under the age of 18, 7.7% from 18 to 24, 29.9% from 25 to 44, 14.9% from 45 to 64, and 7.7% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 28 years. For every 100 females, there were 121.0 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 133.3 males. The median income for
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