Na-Dene is a
Native AmericanThe indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
language familyA language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ancestor, called the proto-language of that family. The term 'family' comes from the tree model of language origination in historical linguistics, which makes use of a metaphor comparing languages to people in a...
which includes at least the
Athabaskan languagesAthabaskan or Athabascan is a large group of indigenous peoples of North America, located in two main Southern and Northern groups in western North America, and of their language family...
,
EyakEyak is an extinct Na-Dené language that was historically spoken by the Eyak people, indigenous to southcentral Alaska, near the mouth of the Copper River.The closest relatives of Eyak are the Athabaskan languages...
, and
TlingitThe Tlingit language ) is spoken by the Tlingit people of Southeast Alaska and Western Canada. It is a branch of the Na-Dené language family. Tlingit is very endangered, with fewer than 140 native speakers still living, all of whom are bilingual or near-bilingual in English...
languages. An inclusion of
HaidaThe Haida language is the language of the Haida people. It contains seven vowels and well over 30 consonants.-History:The first documented contact between the Haida and Europeans was in 1774, on Juan Pérez's exploratory voyage. At this time Haidas inhabited the Queen Charlotte Islands, Dall...
is controversial.
In February 2008 a proposal relating Na-Dene (excluding Haida) to the
Yeniseian languagesThe Yeniseian language family is spoken in central Siberia.-Family division:0. Proto-Yeniseian...
of central
SiberiaSiberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...
was published and well received by a number of linguists.
The name
Edward SapirEdward Sapir was an American anthropologist-linguist, widely considered to be one of the most important figures in the early development of the discipline of linguistics....
originally constructed the term
Na-Dene to refer to a combined family of Athabaskan, Tlingit, and Haida. (The existence of Eyak was not known at the time.) In his “The Na-Dene languages: A preliminary report”, he describes how he arrived at the term (Sapir 1915, p. 558):
Family division
In its non-controversial core, Na-Dene consists of two branches, Tlingit and Athabaskan–Eyak:
- Tlingit
The Tlingit language ) is spoken by the Tlingit people of Southeast Alaska and Western Canada. It is a branch of the Na-Dené language family. Tlingit is very endangered, with fewer than 140 native speakers still living, all of whom are bilingual or near-bilingual in English...
: 700 speakers (Michael Krauss, 1995)
- Athabaskan–Eyak
- Eyak
Eyak is an extinct Na-Dené language that was historically spoken by the Eyak people, indigenous to southcentral Alaska, near the mouth of the Copper River.The closest relatives of Eyak are the Athabaskan languages...
: extinct in 2008
- Athabaskan
Athabaskan or Athabascan is a large group of indigenous peoples of North America, located in two main Southern and Northern groups in western North America, and of their language family...
- Northern
Northern Athabaskan is a geographic sub-grouping of the Athabaskan language family spoken in the northern part of North America, particularly in Alaska and the Yukon...
- Pacific Coast
Pacific Coast Athabaskan is a geographical and possibly genealogical grouping of the Athabaskan language family.-California Athabaskan:Pacific Coast Athabaskan is a geographical and possibly genealogical grouping of the Athabaskan language family....
- Southern
Southern Athabaskan is a subfamily of Athabaskan languages spoken primarily in the North American Southwest with two outliers in Oklahoma and Texas...
For linguists who follow
Edward SapirEdward Sapir was an American anthropologist-linguist, widely considered to be one of the most important figures in the early development of the discipline of linguistics....
in connecting Haida to the above languages, the Haida isolate represents an additional branch, with Athabaskan–Eyak–Tlingit together forming the other.
DeneThe Dene are an aboriginal group of First Nations who live in the northern boreal and Arctic regions of Canada. The Dené speak Northern Athabaskan languages. Dene is the common Athabaskan word for "people" . The term "Dene" has two usages...
or Dine (the Athabaskan languages) is a widely distributed group of Native languages spoken by associated peoples in
AlbertaAlberta is a province of Canada. It had an estimated population of 3.7 million in 2010 making it the most populous of Canada's three prairie provinces...
,
British ColumbiaBritish Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...
,
ManitobaManitoba is a Canadian prairie province with an area of . The province has over 110,000 lakes and has a largely continental climate because of its flat topography. Agriculture, mostly concentrated in the fertile southern and western parts of the province, is vital to the province's economy; other...
,
Northwest TerritoriesThe Northwest Territories is a federal territory of Canada.Located in northern Canada, the territory borders Canada's two other territories, Yukon to the west and Nunavut to the east, and three provinces: British Columbia to the southwest, and Alberta and Saskatchewan to the south...
,
NunavutNunavut is the largest and newest federal territory of Canada; it was separated officially from the Northwest Territories on April 1, 1999, via the Nunavut Act and the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement Act, though the actual boundaries had been established in 1993...
,
SaskatchewanSaskatchewan is a prairie province in Canada, which has an area of . Saskatchewan is bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, and on the south by the U.S. states of Montana and North Dakota....
,
YukonYukon is the westernmost and smallest of Canada's three federal territories. It was named after the Yukon River. The word Yukon means "Great River" in Gwich’in....
,
AlaskaAlaska is the largest state in 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...
, parts of
OregonOregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...
, northern
CaliforniaCalifornia is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
, and the American Southwest as far as northern
MexicoThe United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional 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...
.
The southwestern division of Athabaskan is also called Southern Athabaskan or Apachean, and includes
NavajoNavajo or Navaho is an Athabaskan language spoken in the southwestern United States. It is geographically and linguistically one of the Southern Athabaskan languages .Navajo has more speakers than any other Native American language north of the...
and all the
ApacheApache is the collective term for several culturally related groups of Native Americans in the United States originally from the Southwest United States. These indigenous peoples of North America speak a Southern Athabaskan language, which is related linguistically to the languages of Athabaskan...
dialects.
EyakThe Eyak are an indigenous group traditionally located on the Copper River Delta and near the town of Cordova, Alaska.-Territory:The Eyak's territory reached from present day Cordova east to the Martin River and north to Miles Glacier....
was spoken in south-central Alaska; the last speaker died in 2008.
NavajoNavajo or Navaho is an Athabaskan language spoken in the southwestern United States. It is geographically and linguistically one of the Southern Athabaskan languages .Navajo has more speakers than any other Native American language north of the...
is by far the most widely spoken language of the Na-Dene family, spoken in
ArizonaArizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...
,
New MexicoNew Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...
, and other regions of the American Southwest.
Typological profile of Athabaskan–Eyak–Tlingit
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 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 guttural (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 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.
Obstruent Correspondences
| Obstruent Correspondences |
| PAET |
PAE |
PA |
Eyak |
Tlingit |
| Normal |
L-assim. |
| d |
d |
d |
d |
d |
| dʒ |
dʒ |
dʒ |
dʒ |
dʒ |
? |
| ɡʲ |
dz |
[dz], s~z |
dz |
ɡ |
| ɡ |
ɡ |
ɡʲ |
ɡ |
ɡ(ʷ) |
| ɡʷ |
ɡʷ |
ɖʐ |
ɡʷ > ɡ |
| ɢ |
ɢ |
ɢ |
ɢ |
ɢ(ʷ) |
| ɢʷ |
ɢʷ |
ɢʷ > ɢ |
| t |
t |
t |
t |
t |
| tʃ |
tʃ |
tʃ |
tʃ |
tʃ (ts) |
tɬ |
| ts |
ts |
ts |
ts |
ts |
tɬ |
| kʲ |
k, ʃ |
| k |
k |
kʲ |
k |
k(ʷ) |
| kʷ |
kʷ |
ʈʂ |
kʷ > k |
| q |
q |
q |
q |
q(ʷ) |
| qʷ |
qʷ |
qʷ > q |
| tʼ |
tʼ |
tʼ |
tʼ |
tʼ |
| tɬʼ |
tɬʼ |
tɬʼ |
tɬʼ |
ɬʼ, tɬʼ |
| tʃʼ |
tʃʼ |
tʃʼ |
tʃʼ |
sʼ, tʃʼ (tsʼ) |
tɬʼ |
| tsʼ |
tsʼ |
tsʼ |
tsʼ |
sʼ, tsʼ |
tɬʼ, ɬ |
| kʼʲ |
kʼ |
| kʼ |
kʼ |
kʼʲ |
kʼ |
xʼ(ʷ), kʼ(ʷ) |
| kʼʷ |
kʼʷ |
ʈʂʼ |
kʼʷ > kʼ |
| qʼ |
qʼ |
qʼ |
qʼ |
χʼ(ʷ) |
| qʼʷ |
qʼʷ |
qʼʷ > qʼ |
qʼ |
χʼ, qʼ(ʷ) |
| ɬ |
ɬ |
ɬ~l |
ɬ |
ɬ |
| ʃ |
ʃ |
ʂ~ʐ |
ʃ (s) |
ʃ (s) |
ɬ |
| s |
s |
s~z |
s |
s |
ʃ |
| xʲ |
s; ʃ |
x |
| x |
x |
xʲ~j |
x |
| xʷ |
xʷ |
ʂ~ʐ |
xʷ > x |
| χ |
χ |
χ~ʁ |
χ |
χ(ʷ) |
| χʷ |
χʷ |
χʷ > χ~ʁ |
χʷ |
| Extrasystematic fricative correspondences |
| sx |
x |
xʲ~j |
x |
s |
| ʃx |
x |
xʲ~j |
ʃ |
ʃ |
| $ |
x(ʷ) ? |
$ (ʃ~xʲ) |
xʷ > x; s |
χ |
Notes:
- PAET, PAE and PA stand for Proto-Athabaskan–Eyak–Tlingit, Proto-Athabaskan–Eyak and Proto-Athabaskan, respectively.
- To prevent cluttering the table, phonemes in the PAET, PAE and PA columns are not asterisked.
- Leer (2008, 2010) doesn't reconstruct the PAET affricates */dɮ/, */tɬ/ and */dz/. Judging from their rarity, he assumes they may be attributable to the resolution of former consonant clusters.
- In Athabaskan and Eyak, sibilants can be diminutive variants of shibilants. In Tlingit, on the other hand, shibilants might sometimes be diminutive variants of sibilants. These correspondences are in parentheses.
Proposals of deeper genealogical relations involving Athabaskan–Eyak–Tlingit
A genealogical connection between the Tlingit, Eyak and Athabaskan languages was suggested early in the 19th century, but not universally accepted until much later.
HaidaThe Haida language is the language of the Haida people. It contains seven vowels and well over 30 consonants.-History:The first documented contact between the Haida and Europeans was in 1774, on Juan Pérez's exploratory voyage. At this time Haidas inhabited the Queen Charlotte Islands, Dall...
, with 15 fluent speakers (M. Krauss, 1995), was originally linked to Tlingit by
Franz BoasFranz Boas was a German-American anthropologist and a pioneer of modern anthropology who has been called the "Father of American Anthropology" and "the Father of Modern Anthropology." Like many such pioneers, he trained in other disciplines; he received his doctorate in physics, and did...
in 1894. Both Haida and Tlingit were then connected to Athabaskan by Edward Sapir in 1915. Linguists such as
Lyle CampbellLyle Richard Campbell is a linguist and leading expert on indigenous American languages—especially those of Mesoamerica—and on historical linguistics in general. He also has expertise in Uralic languages. He is presently Professor of Linguistics at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.-Life and...
(1997) today consider the evidence inconclusive. They have classified Haida as a
language isolateA language isolate, in the absolute sense, is a natural language with no demonstrable genealogical relationship with other languages; that is, one that has not been demonstrated to descend from an ancestor common with any other language. They are in effect language families consisting of a single...
. 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 has published extensive primary materials on what he calls
PAET (Proto-Athabascan–Eyak–Tlingit).
Dené–Yeniseian
Edward VajdaEdward Vajda is a historical linguist at Western Washington University. He has become known for his work on the proposed Dené–Yeniseian language family, seeking to establish that the Ket language of Siberia has a common linguistic ancestor with the Na-Dené languages of North America...
of
Western Washington UniversityWestern Washington University is one of six state-funded, four-year universities of higher education in the U.S. state of Washington. It is located in Bellingham and offers bachelor's and master's degrees.-History:...
in 2008 presented compelling evidence that the Na-Dene languages (Athabaskan–Eyak–Tlingit) are related to
YeniseianThe Yeniseian language family is spoken in central Siberia.-Family division:0. Proto-Yeniseian...
(or Yeniseic) languages of
SiberiaSiberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...
, the only living representative of which is the
Ket languageThe Ket language, formerly known as Yenisei Ostyak, is a Siberian language long thought to be an isolate, the sole surviving language of a Yeniseian language family...
. This evidence provides a geographic source of origin for the widely recognized third migration of peoples to North America, who formed part of its ancient prehistoric indigenous peoples.
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 KariJames Kari is a linguist and Professor Emeritus with the Alaska Native Language Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks , specializing in Athabascan languages of Alaska. In the past thirty-five years he has done extensive linguistic work in many Athabascan languages including Ahtna, Dena'ina,...
, and Heinrich Werner, as well as a number of other well-known linguists, including
Bernard ComrieBernard Comrie is a British-born linguist. Comrie is a specialist in linguistic typology and linguistic universals, and on Caucasian languages....
,
Johanna NicholsLinguist Johanna Nichols is a professor emerita on active duty in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of California, Berkeley. Her research interests include the Slavic languages, the linguistic prehistory of northern Eurasia, language typology, ancient linguistic...
, Victor Golla,
Michael FortescueMichael David Fortescue is a British-born linguist specializing in Arctic and native North American languages, including Kalaallisut, Inuktun, Chukchi and Nitinaht. He is professor of General Linguistics at the University of Copenhagen and chairman of the Linguistic Circle of Copenhagen...
, and
Eric HampEric Pratt Hamp is an American linguist. Born in London, England on November 16, 1920, he grew up in The United States from age 5 onward due to his father's posting by a British shipping firm...
. 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.
Other proposals
According to
Joseph GreenbergJoseph Harold Greenberg was a prominent and controversial American linguist, principally known for his work in two areas, linguistic typology and the genetic classification of languages.- Early life and career :...
's controversial classification of the languages of Native North America, Na-Dené (including Haida as well as Athabaskan–Eyak + Tlingit) is one of the three main groups of Native languages spoken in the Americas. It represents a distinct wave of migration from Asia to the Americas. The genealogical relationship of Tlingit, Eyak and Athabaskan is widely accepted, while the inclusion of Haida remains controversial. The other two families recognized by Greenberg for the Americas are the widely accepted Eskimo–Aleut family, spoken in Siberia, Alaska, the Canadian Arctic and
GreenlandGreenland is an autonomous country within the Kingdom of Denmark, located between the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Though physiographically a part of the continent of North America, Greenland has been politically and culturally associated with Europe for...
; and the far less widely accepted
AmerindAmerind is a higher-level language family proposed by Joseph Greenberg in 1960. Greenberg proposed that all of the indigenous languages of the Americas belong to one of three language families, the previously established Eskimo–Aleut and Na–Dene, and with everything else—almost universally believed...
, Greenberg's most controversial classification, which includes every language native to the Americas that is not Eskimo–Aleut or Na-Dené.
Contemporary supporters of Greenberg's theory, such as
Merritt RuhlenMerritt Ruhlen is an American linguist known for his work on the classification of languages and what this reveals about the origin and evolution of modern humans. Amongst other linguists, Ruhlen's work is recognized as standing outside the mainstream of comparative-historical linguistics...
, have suggested that the Na-Dené language family represents a distinct migration of people from
AsiaAsia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
to the New World. Ruhlen claims this migration occurred six to eight thousand years ago, placing it around four thousand years later than the previous migration into the Americas by Amerind speakers. Ruhlen speculates that the Na-Dené speakers may have arrived in boats, initially settling near the
Queen Charlotte IslandsHaida Gwaii , formerly the Queen Charlotte Islands, is an archipelago on the North Coast of British Columbia, Canada. Haida Gwaii consists of two main islands: Graham Island in the north, and Moresby Island in the south, along with approximately 150 smaller islands with a total landmass of...
, now in
British ColumbiaBritish Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...
,
CanadaCanada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
.
According to
Sergei StarostinDr. Sergei Anatolyevich Starostin was a Russian historical linguist and scholar, best known for his work with hypothetical proto-languages, including his work on the reconstruction of the Proto-Borean language, the controversial theory of Altaic languages and the formulation of the Dené–Caucasian...
and his followers, Na-Dené (including Haida) belongs to the much broader Dené–Caucasian superfamily, which also contains the
North Caucasian languagesNorth Caucasian languages is a blanket term for two language phyla spoken chiefly in the north Caucasus and Turkey: the Northwest Caucasian family and the Northeast Caucasian family North Caucasian languages (sometimes called simply Caucasic as opposed to Kartvelian, and to avoid confusion with...
,
Sino-Tibetan languagesThe Sino-Tibetan languages are a language family comprising, at least, the Chinese and the Tibeto-Burman languages, including some 250 languages of East Asia, Southeast Asia and parts of South Asia. They are second only to the Indo-European languages in terms of the number of native speakers...
, and
Yeniseian languagesThe Yeniseian language family is spoken in central Siberia.-Family division:0. Proto-Yeniseian...
. Some of the links subsumed by the Dené–Caucasian proposal were suggested much earlier. Linguist
Edward SapirEdward Sapir was an American anthropologist-linguist, widely considered to be one of the most important figures in the early development of the discipline of linguistics....
considered the hypothesis that Sino-Tibetan is genealogically related to Na-Dené nearly a century ago.
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