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Na-Dene (; also Nadene, Na-Dené, Athabaskan–Eyak–Tlingit, Tlina–Dene) is a family of Native American languages that includes at least the Athabaskan languages,
Eyak The Eyak ( Eyak: ʔi·ya·ɢdəlahɢəyu·, literally "inhabitants of Eyak Village at Mile 6"Krauss, Michael E. 1970. ''Eyak dictionary''. University of Alaska and Massachusetts Institute of Technology 1963-1970) are a Native American indigenous ...
, and Tlingit languages.
Haida Haida may refer to: Places * Haida, an old name for Nový Bor * Haida Gwaii, meaning "Islands of the People", formerly called the Queen Charlotte Islands * Haida Islands, a different archipelago near Bella Bella, British Columbia Ships * , a 1 ...
was formerly included, but is now considered doubtful. By far the most widely spoken Na-Dene language today is
Navajo The Navajo (; British English: Navaho; nv, Diné or ') are a Native American people of the Southwestern United States. With more than 399,494 enrolled tribal members , the Navajo Nation is the largest federally recognized tribe in the United ...
. In February 2008, a proposal connecting Na-Dene (excluding Haida) to the Yeniseian languages of central Siberia into a Dené–Yeniseian family was published and well-received by a number of linguists.Dene–Yeniseic Symposium
, University of Alaska Fairbanks, February 2008, accessed 30 Mar 2010
It was proposed in a 2014 paper that the Na-Dene languages of North America and the Yeniseian languages of Siberia had a common origin in a language spoken in
Beringia Beringia is defined today as the land and maritime area bounded on the west by the Lena River in Russia; on the east by the Mackenzie River in Canada; on the north by 72 degrees north latitude in the Chukchi Sea; and on the south by the tip ...
, between the two continents.


Etymology

Edward Sapir originally constructed the term ''Na-Dene'' to refer to a combined family of Athabaskan, Tlingit, and Haida (the existence of the Eyak language was not known to him 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 uncontroversial core, Na-Dene consists of two branches, Tlingit and Athabaskan–Eyak: * Tlingit: 1,360 speakers * Athabaskan–Eyak **
Eyak The Eyak ( Eyak: ʔi·ya·ɢdəlahɢəyu·, literally "inhabitants of Eyak Village at Mile 6"Krauss, Michael E. 1970. ''Eyak dictionary''. University of Alaska and Massachusetts Institute of Technology 1963-1970) are a Native American indigenous ...
: the last native speaker died in 2008 **
Athabaskan Athabaskan (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 C ...
***
Northern Northern may refer to the following: Geography * North, a point in direction * Northern Europe, the northern part or region of Europe * Northern Highland, a region of Wisconsin, United States * Northern Province, Sri Lanka * Northern Range, a ra ...
***
Pacific Coast Pacific coast may be used to reference any coastline that borders the Pacific Ocean. Geography Americas Countries on the western side of the Americas have a Pacific coast as their western or southwestern border, except for Panama, where the Pac ...
***
Southern Southern may refer to: Businesses * China Southern Airlines, airline based in Guangzhou, China * Southern Airways, defunct US airline * Southern Air, air cargo transportation company based in Norwalk, Connecticut, US * Southern Airways Express, M ...
For linguists who follow Edward Sapir in connecting Haida to the above languages, Haida represents an additional branch, with Athabaskan–Eyak–Tlingit together forming the other. Dene or Dine (the Athabaskan languages) is a widely distributed group of Native languages spoken by associated peoples in Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba,
Northwest Territories The Northwest Territories (abbreviated ''NT'' or ''NWT''; french: Territoires du Nord-Ouest, formerly ''North-Western Territory'' and ''North-West Territories'' and namely shortened as ''Northwest Territory'') is a federal territory of Canada. ...
,
Nunavut Nunavut ( , ; iu, ᓄᓇᕗᑦ , ; ) is the largest and northernmost Provinces and territories of Canada#Territories, territory of Canada. It was separated officially from the Northwest Territories on April 1, 1999, via the ''Nunavut Act'' ...
, Saskatchewan, Yukon, Alaska, parts of Oregon, northern California, and the American Southwest as far as northern Mexico. The southwestern division of Athabaskan is also called Southern Athabaskan or Apachean, and includes
Navajo The Navajo (; British English: Navaho; nv, Diné or ') are a Native American people of the Southwestern United States. With more than 399,494 enrolled tribal members , the Navajo Nation is the largest federally recognized tribe in the United ...
and all the
Apache The Apache () are a group of culturally related Native American tribes in the Southwestern United States, which include the Chiricahua, Jicarilla, Lipan, Mescalero, Mimbreño, Ndendahe (Bedonkohe or Mogollon and Nednhi or Carrizaleño an ...
languages.
Eyak The Eyak ( Eyak: ʔi·ya·ɢdəlahɢəyu·, literally "inhabitants of Eyak Village at Mile 6"Krauss, Michael E. 1970. ''Eyak dictionary''. University of Alaska and Massachusetts Institute of Technology 1963-1970) are a Native American indigenous ...
was spoken in south-central Alaska; the last first language speaker died in 2008.
Navajo The Navajo (; British English: Navaho; nv, Diné or ') are a Native American people of the Southwestern United States. With more than 399,494 enrolled tribal members , the Navajo Nation is the largest federally recognized tribe in the United ...
is by far the most widely spoken language of the Na-Dene family, spoken in Arizona, New Mexico, 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 dorsal (velar or uvular) consonants (fronting in many modern Athabaskan languages to palatals and velars, correspondingly) as well as a general absence of labial
obstruents An obstruent () is a speech sound such as , , or that is formed by ''obstructing'' airflow. Obstruents contrast with sonorants, which have no such obstruction and so resonate. All obstruents are consonants, but sonorants include vowels as well a ...
(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.


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.
Haida Haida may refer to: Places * Haida, an old name for Nový Bor * Haida Gwaii, meaning "Islands of the People", formerly called the Queen Charlotte Islands * Haida Islands, a different archipelago near Bella Bella, British Columbia Ships * , a 1 ...
, with 15 fluent speakers (M. Krauss, 1995), was originally linked to Tlingit by
Franz Boas Franz Uri Boas (July 9, 1858 – December 21, 1942) was a German-American anthropologist and a pioneer of modern anthropology who has been called the "Father of American Anthropology". His work is associated with the movements known as historical ...
in 1894. Both Haida and Tlingit were then connected to Athabaskan by Edward Sapir in 1915. Linguists such as Lyle Campbell (1997) today consider the evidence inconclusive. They have classified Haida as a
language isolate Language isolates are languages that cannot be classified into larger language families. Korean and Basque are two of the most common examples. Other language isolates include Ainu in Asia, Sandawe in Africa, and Haida in North America. The num ...
. 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 published extensive primary materials on what he calls ''PAET'' (Proto-Athabaskan–Eyak–Tlingit).


Dené–Yeniseian

In 2008, Edward Vajda of Western Washington University presented evidence suggesting that the Na-Dene languages (Athabaskan–Eyak–Tlingit) might be related to the Yeniseian (or Yeniseic) languages of Siberia,See Vajda 2010 the only living representative of which is the Ket language. 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 Kari, and Heinrich Werner, as well as a number of other well-known linguists, including Bernard Comrie,
Johanna Nichols Johanna Nichols (born 1945, Iowa City, Iowa) is an American linguist and professor emerita in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of California, Berkeley. She earned her Ph.D. in Linguistics at the University of C ...
, Victor Golla,
Michael Fortescue Michael David Fortescue (born 8 August 1946) is a British-born linguistics, linguist specializing in Arctic and native North American languages, including Greenlandic language, Kalaallisut, Inuktun, Chukchi language, Chukchi and Nitinaht languag ...
, and
Eric Hamp Eric Pratt Hamp (November 16, 1920 – February 17, 2019) was an American linguist widely respected as a leading authority on Indo-European linguistics, with particular interests in Celtic languages and Albanian. Unlike many Indo-Europeanists, who ...
. 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 Greenberg's controversial classification of the languages of Native North America, Na-Dené (including Haida) is one of the three main groups of Native languages spoken in the Americas. Contemporary supporters of Greenberg's theory, such as Merritt Ruhlen, have suggested that the Na-Dené language family represents a distinct migration of people from Asia into the New World that occurred six to eight thousand years ago, placing it around four thousand years later than the previous migration into the Americas by Amerind speakers; this remains an unproven hypothesis. Ruhlen speculates that the Na-Dené speakers may have arrived in boats, initially settling near the Haida Gwaii, now in British Columbia, Canada. A fringe hypothesis by Sergei Starostin suggested that Na-Dené (including Haida) may belong to the much broader Dené–Caucasian superfamily, which also contains the North Caucasian languages, Sino-Tibetan languages, and Yeniseian languages. This proposal is rejected by nearly all current linguists. Around 1920 linguist Edward Sapir became convinced that Na–Dené was more closely related to Sino–Tibetan than to other American families. He suggested that the Sino-Tibetan languages are related to Na-Dené. Edward Vadja's Dené–Yeniseian proposal renewed interest among linguists such as
Geoffrey Caveney Geoffrey, Geoffroy, Geoff, etc., may refer to: People * Geoffrey (name), including a list of people with the name * Geoffroy (surname), including a list of people with the name * Geoffrey of Monmouth (c. 1095–c. 1155), clergyman and one of the m ...
(2014) to look into support for the Sino–Dené hypothesis. Caveney considered a link between Sino–Tibetan, Na–Dené, and Yeniseian to be plausible but did not support the hypothesis that Sino–Tibetan and Na–Dené were related to the North Caucasian languages (Sino–Caucasian and Dené–Caucasian).


Obstruent correspondences

This phonological chart shows where the listed varieties have sounds which are the same, similar, and sometimes different. The sounds shown,
obstruents An obstruent () is a speech sound such as , , or that is formed by ''obstructing'' airflow. Obstruents contrast with sonorants, which have no such obstruction and so resonate. All obstruents are consonants, but sonorants include vowels as well a ...
, are a particular class of consonants. Where similarities are found between one or more varieties, this presents at least some evidence of genetic relatedness among those varieties. Table notes: #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 , and . 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.


Footnotes


See also

* Dené–Yeniseian languages * Athabaskan languages * Southern Athabaskan languages


Footnotes


References

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External links


Alaska Native Language Center



Dené–Yeniseian / Na-Dené Swadesh lists
(incomplete) {{DEFAULTSORT:Na-Dene Languages Language families Dené–Yeniseian languages