Athabaskan languages
Athabaskan (/ˌæθəˈbæskən/ ATH-ə-BASK-ən; also spelled Athabascan, Athapaskan or Athapascan, and also known as Dene) is a large family of Indigenous languages 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).
"Athabaskan" redirects here. For any of the ships named HMCS Athabaskan, see HMCS Athabaskan. For the ethnic group in Alaska, see Alaskan Athabaskans.Athabaskan
Western North America
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.[1] 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 the original name of the lake."[2]
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.[3] Ethnologue uses Athapaskan in naming the language family and individual languages.[4]
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 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.[5]
External classification[edit]
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 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 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 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 the proto-languages, indicating that these languages might be related.[8]