Katana VentraIP

Southern Athabaskan languages

Southern Athabaskan (also Apachean) is a subfamily of Athabaskan languages spoken primarily in the Southwestern United States (including Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Utah) with two outliers in Oklahoma and Texas. The languages are spoken in the northern Mexican states of Sonora, Chihuahua, Coahuila and to a much lesser degree in Durango and Nuevo León. Those languages are spoken by various groups of Apache and Navajo peoples. Elsewhere, Athabaskan is spoken by many indigenous groups of peoples in Alaska, Canada, Oregon and northern California.

Southern Athabascan

Dené–Yeniseian?

Self-designations for Western Apache and Navajo are N'dee biyat'i, and Diné bizaad or Naabeehó bizaad, respectively.


There are several well-known historical people whose first language was Southern Athabaskan. Geronimo (Goyaałé) who spoke Chiricahua was a famous raider and war leader. Manuelito spoke Navajo and is famous for his leadership during and after the Long Walk of the Navajo.

Only Navajo and Western Apache have glottalized nasals.

How Different can Languages be?: The grammatical mosaic of Navajo

Simplified Apache Pronunciation

Chiricahua and Mescalero Texts

Grammatical Sketch of Chiricahua/Mescalero

Other Apache Ethnographical Sources

Apache texts

Goddard's Jicarilla Texts (translation only)

Issues in Language Textbook Development: The Case of Western Apache

White Mountain Apache Language: Issues in Language Shift, Textbook Development, and Native Speaker-University Collaboration

Phonetic Structures of Western Apache (318 kb PDF: technical work on acoustic phonetics)

Archived 2012-04-23 at the Wayback Machine, Apache Online Etymology Dictionary

EtymOnline.com

Apache Language Sample

Language-Museum.com