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Athabaskan or Athabascan (also Dene, Athapascan, Athapaskan, Athabasca Indians or Athapaskes) is the name of a large group of closely related indigenous peoples
Indigenous peoples of the Americas

The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of the Americas, their descendants, and many ethnic groups who identify with those peoples....
 of North America
North America

North America is the northern continent of the Americas, situated in the Earth's northern hemisphere and almost totally in the western hemisphere....
, located in two main Southern and Northern groups in western North America, and of their language family. The Athabaskan family is the second largest family in North America in terms of number of languages and the number of speakers, following the Uto-Aztecan
Uto-Aztecan languages

Uto-Aztecan is a Indigenous languages of the Americas language family. It is one of the largest and most well-established linguistic families of the Americas....
 family which extends into Mexico.






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Athabaskan or Athabascan (also Dene, Athapascan, Athapaskan, Athabasca Indians or Athapaskes) is the name of a large group of closely related indigenous peoples
Indigenous peoples of the Americas

The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of the Americas, their descendants, and many ethnic groups who identify with those peoples....
 of North America
North America

North America is the northern continent of the Americas, situated in the Earth's northern hemisphere and almost totally in the western hemisphere....
, located in two main Southern and Northern groups in western North America, and of their language family. The Athabaskan family is the second largest family in North America in terms of number of languages and the number of speakers, following the Uto-Aztecan
Uto-Aztecan languages

Uto-Aztecan is a Indigenous languages of the Americas language family. It is one of the largest and most well-established linguistic families of the Americas....
 family which extends into Mexico. In terms of territory, only the Algic language family
Algic languages

The Algic languages are an Indigenous language language family of North America. They are all thought to descend from Proto-Algic, a second-order proto language reconstructed using Proto-Algonquian and the attested languages Wiyot language and Yurok language....
 covers a larger area.

The word Athabaskan is an anglicized
Anglo

The term Anglo is used as a prefix to indicate a relation to the Angles, England or the English people, as in the terms Anglo-Saxon, English American, Anglo-Celtic, and Anglo-Indian....
 version of the Woods Cree
Cree language

Cree is the name for a group of closely-related Algonquian languages spoken by approximately 117,000 people across Canada, from the Northwest Territories to Labrador, making it by far the most spoken Native American languages in Canada....
 name for Lake Athabasca
Lake Athabasca

Lake Athabasca is located in the northwest corner of Saskatchewan and the northeast corner of Alberta between 58th parallel north and 60th parallel north....
 (aðapaskaw, “[where] there are plants one after another”) in Canada
Canada

Canada is a country occupying most of northern North America, extending from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and northward into the Arctic Ocean....
. The name was assigned by Albert Gallatin
Albert Gallatin

Abraham Alfonse Albert Gallatin was a Swiss-American ethnologist, linguistics, Politics of the United States, diplomat, United States Representative, and the longest-serving United States Secretary of the Treasury....
 in his 1836 (written 1826) classification of the languages of North America. He acknowledged that the name for these related languages was entirely his own individual preference, writing:

"I have designated them by the arbitrary denomination of Athabascas, which derived from the original name of the lake." (1836:116-7)


Albert Gallatin's arbitrary designation has unfortunate connotations as "Athabascas" describes a shallow, weedy lake. "Athabaskans" prefer to be identified by their specific language and location.

Languages


The 31 Northern Athabaskan languages are spoken throughout the interior of Alaska
Alaska

Alaska is the largest U.S. state of the United States by area; it is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait....
 and the interior of northwestern Canada
Canada

Canada is a country occupying most of northern North America, extending from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and northward into the Arctic Ocean....
 in the Yukon
Yukon

Yukon is the westernmost and smallest of Canada three Territories of Canada. It was named after the Yukon River, Yukon meaning "Great River" in Gwich?in language....
 and Northwest Territories
Northwest Territories

The Northwest Territories are a provinces and territories of Canada of Canada.Located in northern Canada, it borders Canada's two other territories, Yukon to the west and Nunavut to the east, and three provinces: British Columbia to the southwest, Alberta and Saskatchewan to the south....
 as well as in the provinces of British Columbia
British Columbia

British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's Provinces and territories of Canada and is famed for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu ....
, Alberta
Alberta

Alberta is one of Canada Canadian Prairies Provinces and territories of Canada. It became a province on September 1, 1905.Alberta is located in western Canada, bounded by the provinces of British Columbia to the west and Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Territories to the north, and the U.S....
, Saskatchewan
Saskatchewan

Saskatchewan is a prairie provinces in Canada, which has an area of 588,276.09 square kilometres and a population of 1,015,895 , mostly living in the southern half of the province....
 and Manitoba
Manitoba

Manitoba is a prairie provinces in Canada, which has an area of 647,797 square kilometres and a population of 1,207,959 , with more than half located within the Winnipeg Capital Region ....
. Several Athabaskan languages are official language
Official language

An official language is a language that is given a special legal status in a particular country, state, or other territory. Typically a nation's official language will be the one used in that nation's courts, parliament and administration....
s in the Northwest Territories, including Dene Suline, Dogrib
Dogrib language

Dogrib is a Northern Athabaskan language language spoken by the First Nations Tli Cho people of the Canadian territory Northwest Territories. According to Statistics Canada in 2006, there were approximately 2,640 people who spoke Dogrib....
 or Tlicho, Gwich’in, and Slavey
Slavey language

Slavey is an Athabaskan languages spoken among the Slavey First Nations of Canada in the Northwest Territories where it also has official language....
.

The seven Pacific Coastal Athabaskan languages are spoken in southern Oregon
Oregon

Oregon is a U.S. state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. The area was inhabited by many indigenous tribes before the arrival of traders, explorers and settlers....
 and northern California
California

California is a U.S. state on the West Coast of the United States of the United States, along the Pacific Ocean. It is bordered by Oregon to the north, Nevada to the east, Arizona to the southeast, and to the south the Mexico state of Baja California....
. Isolated from the northern and coastal languages, the six Southern Athabaskan languages, including the different Apache
Apache

Apache is the collective term for several culturally related groups of Native Americans in the United States. These indigenous peoples of North America speak a Southern Athabaskan languages language, and are related linguistically to the languages of Athabaskan speakers of Alaska and western Canada....
 peoples and Navajo
Navajo language

Navajo or Navaho is an Athabaskan languages spoken in the southwest United States by the Navajo people . It is geographically and linguistically one of the Southern Athabaskan languages ....
, are spoken in the American Southwest and the northwestern part of Mexico
Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federalism constitutionalism republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of Mexico....
.

Eyak and Athabaskan together form a genetic grouping called Athabaskan-Eyak. Tlingit
Tlingit language

The Tlingit language is spoken by the Tlingit people of Southeast Alaska and Western Canada. It is a branch of the Na-Den? languages family. Tlingit is very endangered language, with fewer than 140 native speakers still living, all of whom are bilingual or near-bilingual in English....
 is distantly related to this group to form the Na-Dené
Na-Dené languages

Na-Dene is a Indigenous peoples of the Americas language family which includes at least the Athabaskan languages, Eyak, and Tlingit language languages....
 stock (also known as Athabaskan-Eyak-Tlingit).

Family division


Overview

The Athabaskan language family has three main geographic groupings: Northern, Pacific Coast, and Southern. There is discussion of whether the Pacific Coast languages actually forms a valid genetic grouping. The Northern group is particularly problematic. Due to the failure of the usual criteria of shared innovation and systematic phonetic correspondences to provide well-defined subgroupings, the Athabaskan family (especially the Northern languages) has been called a "cohesive complex" by Michael Krauss
Michael Krauss

Michael E. Krauss is a linguist who has worked extensively on the Na-Den? languages language family, especially on proto-Athabaskan, pre-proto-Athabaskan, the Eyak language, which became extinct in January 2008, and also numerous other Athabaskan and Eskimo-Aleut languages....
 (1973, 1982). Therefore, the Stammbaumtheorie model (family tree) of genetic classification may be inappropriate. The languages of the Southern branch are much more homogeneous and are the only clearly genetic subgrouping.

Below is an outline of the family showing only the major branches of the family. This outline follows mostly the classification of Keren Rice as seen in Goddard (1996) and Mithun (1999).

  1. Southern Alaska
  2. Central Alaska-Yukon
  3. Northwestern Canada
  4. Tsetsaut
  5. Central British Columbia
  6. Sarsi
  7. Kwalhioqua-Tlatskanai
  8. Pacific Coast Athabaskan
  9. Apachean


Branches 1-7 are the Northern Athabaskan (areal) grouping. Kwalhioqua-Tlatskanai (#7) has often been considered part of the Pacific Coast grouping, but a recent consideration by Krauss does not find it very similar to these languages.

A different classification by Jeff Leer is the following (Tuttle & Hargus 2004:72-74):

  1. Alaskan (Ahtna, Dena’ina, Deg Hit’an, Koyukon, Kolchan, Lower Tanana, Tanacross, Upper Tanana, Gwich’in, Han)
  2. Yukon (Tsetsaut, N. Tutchone, S. Tutchone, Tagish, Tahltan, Kaska, Sekani, Dunneza)
  3. British Columbia (Babine-Witsuwit’en, Dakelh, Chilcotin)
  4. Eastern (Dene Suline, Slavey, Dogrib)
  5. Southernly (Tsuut’ina, Apachean, Pacific Coast Athabaskan)


At this time, the details of the Athabaskan family tree should be regarded as tentative.

For detailed lists including languages, dialects, and subdialects, see the respective articles on the 3 major groups (that is, Northern Athabaskan, Pacific Coast Athabaskan, Southern Athabaskan).

Northern Athabaskan

  • Southern Alaskan subgroup
1. Ahtna
Ahtna language

Ahtna or Ahtena is the Na-Den? language of the Ahtna ethnic group of the Copper River area of Alaska. The language is also known as Copper River or Mednovskiy....
2. Dena’ina
Dena’ina language

Dena?ina is the Athabaskan languages 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....
 (also known as Tanaina)


  • Central Alaska – Yukon subgroup
3. Deg Xinag
Deg Xinag

The Deg Xinag language is a Northern Athabaskan language spoken by the Deg Hit?an peoples in Shageluk, Alaska and Anvik, Alaska and at Holy Cross, Alaska along the lower Yukon River in Alaska....
 (also known as Deg Hit'an, Kaiyuhkhotana)
4. Holikachuk
Holikachuk language

Holikachuk is an Athabaskan languages language formerly spoken at the village of Holikachuk on the Innoko River in central Alaska. The Holikachuk people now live in Grayling, Alaska on the lower Yukon River....
 (also known as Innoko)
5. Koyukon
Koyukon language

Koyukon is an Athabaskan language spoken along the Koyukuk and middle Yukon River in western interior Alaska. Also called Ten'a, Koyukon has about 300 speakers - generally older adults bilingual in English - from an ethnic population of 2,300....
6. Kolchan (also known as Upper Kuskokwim)
7. Lower Tanana
Lower Tanana language

Lower Tanana is an endangered language Athabaskan languages language spoken in Interior Alaska in the lower Tanana River villages of Minto, Alaska and Nenana, Alaska....
 (also known as Tanana)
8. Tanacross
Tanacross language

Tanacross is an endangered language Athabaskan languages spoken by fewer than 60 persons in eastern Interior Alaska....
9. Upper Tanana
10. Southern Tutchone
Southern Tutchone

The Southern Tutchone are a First Nations people living mainly in the southern Yukon in Canada. The Southern Tutchone language, originally spoken by the Southern Tutchone people is a lect of the Tutchone language, part of the Athabaskan languages, although it may be argued that Northern and Southern Tutchone are separate languages....
11. Northern Tutchone
Northern Tutchone

The Northern Tutchone are a First Nations people living mainly in the central Yukon in Canada. The Northern Tutchone language, originally spoken by the Northern Tutchone people, is a lect of the Tutchone language, part of the Athabaskan languages....
12. Gwich’in
Gwich’in language

The Gwich?in language is the Athabaskan languages of the Gwich?in indigenous people. In the Northwest Territories and Yukon of Canada, it is used principally in the towns of Inuvik, Aklavik, Northwest Territories, Fort McPherson, Northwest Territories, Old Crow, Yukon, and Tsiigehtchic, Northwest Territories....
 (also known as Kutchin)
13. Hän
Hän language

The H?n language is a Indigenous peoples of the Americas endangered language spoken in only two places: Eagle, Alaska and Dawson City, Yukon. There are only a few fluent speakers left , all of them elderly....
 (also known as Han)


  • Northwestern Canada subgroup
A. Tahltan-Tagish-Kaska
14. Tagish
Tagish language

Tagish is an endangered language Athabaskan languages#Northern Athabaskan spoken by the Tagish people in the Yukon Territory in Canada. It is almost extinct language as there are only two fluent speakers left....
 15. Tahltan
Tahltan

Tahltan refers to a Northern Athabaskan people who live in northern British Columbia around Telegraph Creek, British Columbia, Dease Lake, British Columbia, and Iskut, British Columbia....
 16. Kaska
Kaska

The Kaska or Kaska Dena are a First Nations people living mainly in northern British Columbia and the southeastern Yukon in Canada. The Kaska language originally spoken by the Kaska is an Athabaskan languages....
17. Sekani
Sekani

Sekani is the name of an Athabaskan First Nations people and language in the northern interior of British Columbia. Their territory includes the Finlay and Parsnip River drainages of the Rocky Mountain Trench....
18. Dunneza
Dunneza

The Dane?aa are a First Nation of the Athapaskan language group, whose traditional territory is around the Peace River of the provinces of Alberta and British Columbia, Canada....
 (also known as Beaver)
B. Slave-Hare (Southern and Northern Slavey)
19. Slavey
Slavey language

Slavey is an Athabaskan languages spoken among the Slavey First Nations of Canada in the Northwest Territories where it also has official language....
 (also known as Slave) 20. Mountain 21. Bearlake 22. Hare
23. Dogrib
Dogrib language

Dogrib is a Northern Athabaskan language language spoken by the First Nations Tli Cho people of the Canadian territory Northwest Territories. According to Statistics Canada in 2006, there were approximately 2,640 people who spoke Dogrib....
24. Dene Suline
Dene Suline language

Dene Suline is the language spoken by the Chipewyan people of central Canada. It is a part of the Athabaskan languages and therefore related to the Navajo language....
 (also known as Chipewyan, Dëne Suliné, Dene Soun’liné)


  • Tsetsaut subgroup
25. Tsetsaut


  • Central British Columbia subgroup
26. Babine-Witsuwit'en
Babine-Witsuwit'en

Babine-Witsuwit'en is an Athabaskan languages language spoken in the central interior of British Columbia. Its closest relative is Dakelh language....
 (also known as North Carrier)
27. Dakelh
Carrier language

The Carrier language is a Northern Athabaskan language. It is named after the Dakelh people, a First Nations people of the central interior of British Columbia, Canada, for whom Carrier is the usual English name....
 (also known as Carrier)
28. Chilcotin
Chilcotin language

Chilcotin is a Athabaskan languages#Northern Athabaskan spoken in British Columbia by the Tsilhqot?in people.The name Chilcotin is derived from the Chilcotin name for themselves: Tsilhqot?in , literally "people of the red ochre river"....
 (also known as Tsilhqot’in)
29. Nicola (also known as Stuwix)


  • Sarsi subgroup
30. Tsuut’ina
Tsuut’ina language

Tsuut?ina is a language spoken by Indigenous peoples of the Americass. It belongs to the Athabaskan languages, which also include the Navajo language and Chiricahua language of the south, and the Dene Suline language and Dogrib language of the north....
 (also known as Sarcee, Sarsi, Tsuu T’ina)


  • Kwalhioqua-Clatskanie subgroup
31. Kwalhioqua-Clatskanie (also known as Kwalhioqua-Tlatskanie)


Pacific Coast Athabaskan

  • California Athabaskan subgroup
32. Hupa
Hupa language

Hupa is an Athabaskan languages spoken in the Trinity valley in California by the Hupa .Morphologically, it is remarkable for having an extremely small number? perhaps less than one hundred? of basic nouns, as nearly all nouns in the language are derived from verbs....
 (also known as Hoopa-Chilula)
33. Mattole-Bear River
34. Eel River


  • Oregon Athabaskan subgroup
35. Upper Umpqua
36. Rogue River
Rogue River (tribe)

Rogue River is the name of a Native Americans in the United States group originally located in southern Oregon in the United States. Rogue River was not a single tribe, but a conglomeration of many affiliated and related tribal groups....
 (also known as Tututni)
37. Galice-Applegate
38. Tolowa
Tolowa language

The Tolowa language is a member of the Pacific Coast Athabaskan subgroup of the Athabaskan languages. It is spoken in southern Oregon. There are only a handful of remaining fully fluent native speakers, like Siletz Tribal Councial Vice-Chairman, Bud Lane, for example....


Southern Athabaskan (also known as Apachean)

  • Plains Apache subgroup


39. Plains Apache
Plains Apache language

The Plains Apache language is a Southern Athabaskan languages spoken by the Plains Apache peoples living primarily in central Oklahoma.Plains Apache is most closely related to other Southern Athabaskan languages like Navajo language, Chiricahua, Mescalero, Lipan Apache, Western Apache language, and Jicarilla Apache....
 (also known as Kiowa-Apache)


  • Western Apachean subgroup
A. Chiricahua-Mescalero
40. Chiricahua
Chiricahua language

Chiricahua is a Southern Athabaskan languages language spoken by the Chiricahua tribe in Oklahoma and New Mexico. It is very closely related to the Mescalero language and more distantly related to Navajo language and Western Apache language....
 41. Mescalero
Mescalero language

Mescalero is a Southern Athabaskan language that is spoken in New Mexico....
42. Navajo
Navajo language

Navajo or Navaho is an Athabaskan languages spoken in the southwest United States by the Navajo people . It is geographically and linguistically one of the Southern Athabaskan languages ....
 (also known as Navaho)
43. Western Apache
Western Apache

Western Apache refers to the similar Apache peoples living primarily in east central Arizona. Goodwin claims that the Western Apache can be divided into five groups based on dialect:...
 (also known as Coyotero Apache)


  • Eastern Apachean subgroup
44. Jicarilla
Jicarilla Apache

Jicarilla Apache refers to an Apache people currently living in New Mexico and speak a Southern Athabaskan languages. The term jicarilla comes from Mexican Spanish meaning 'little basket'....
45. Lipan
Lipan Apache

Lipan Apache are Southern Athabascan languages people who are aboriginal to present-day Texas, New Mexico, Colorado and the northern Mexican states of Chihuahua, Nuevo Leon, Coahuila, and Tamaulipas prior to the 17th century....


Areal list

List of the Athabaskan languages by their geographic locations.

Proto-Athabaskan


Phonology


A recent reconstruction of proto-Athabaskan consists of 40 consonants (Cook 1981; Krauss & Golla 1981; Krauss & Leer 1981; Cook & Rice 1989), as detailed below:

|}

See also


  • Broken Slavey
    Broken Slavey

    Broken Slavey is a trade language used between Indians and whites in the Yukon area in the 19th century.Broken Slavey is based primarily on the Slavey language with elements from French language, Cree language, and perhaps to a lesser extent English language....


External links



Bibliography