NA-DENé LANGUAGES

'Na-Dené' (also 'Na-Dene', 'Nadene', 'Athabaskan-Eyak-Tlingit') is a proposed Native American language family which includes the Athabaskan languages, Eyak, Tlingit, and possibly Haida. The connection of Haida to the other languages is controversial and the status of the Na-Dené hypothesis remains disputed.

Contents

Family division

Genetic relation proposals

References

See also

External links

Family division

The Na-Dene family include:

★ Tlingit language: 700 speakers (M. Krauss, 1995)

★ Athabaskan-Eyak

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★ Eyak language: extinct

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★ Athabaskan languages

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★ Northern

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★ Pacific Coast

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★ Southern
Navajo is the most widely spoken language of the Na-Dené family, spoken in Arizona, New Mexico, and other regions of the American Southwest. Dene or Dine is a widely distributed group of Native languages and peoples spoken in Canada, Alaska, and parts of Oregon and northern California. Eyak was spoken in south central Alaska; the last speaker died in 2005.

Genetic relation proposals

Haida, with 15 fluent speakers (M. Krauss, 1995), was originally included in the proposed family by Franz Boas. Linguists such as Campbell (1997) today consider the evidence inconclusive and have classified Haida as a language isolate. In order to emphasise the exclusion of Haida, Campbell refers to the language family as ''Athabaskan-Eyak-Tlingit'' rather than ''Na-Dene''.
According to Joseph Greenberg's controversial classification of the languages of Native North America, Na-Dené-Athabaskan is one of the three main groups of Native languages spoken in the Americas, and represents a distinct wave of migration from Asia to the Americas. The other two are the widely accepted Eskimo-Aleut family, spoken in Siberia, Alaska, the Canadian Arctic and Greenland, and Amerind, 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 Ruhlen have suggested that the Na-Dené language family represents a distinct migration of people from Asia to the New World. This migration is estimated to have 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 Islands, now in British Columbia, Canada. [1]
According to the similarly controversial theory of Sergei Starostin, Na-Dené is a member of the Dene-Caucasian superfamily, along with the North Caucasian languages, Sino-Tibetan languages, Yeniseian languages and Basque. This idea was considered by Edward Sapir. Professor Edward Vajda of Western Washington University suggests that these languages are related to Yeniseian (or Yeniseic) languages in Siberia, which would also support the controversial theory of Starostin and others.
This proposal also is supported by biological studies (Rubicz 2002) showing greater genetical differences between Na-Dene speakers and other native Americans than between speakers of Na-Dene and peoples in Eurasia, particularly speakers of Yeniseian languages.
More conservative linguists such as Lyle Campbell do not believe that these hypotheses rest on sufficiently sound linguistic data for them to deserve recognition.

References

★ Dürr, Michael & Egon Renner. 1995. The history of the Na-Dene controversy: A sketch. ''Language and Culture in North America: Studies in Honor of Heinz-Jürgen Pinnow'', ed. by Egon Renner & Michael Dürr, 3-18. (Lincom Studies in Native American Linguistics 2). Munich: Lincom Europa.

★ Enrico, John. 2004. Toward Proto – Na-Dene. ''Anthropological Linguistics'' 46(3).229 – 302.

★ Goddard, Pliny E. 1920. Has Tlingit a genetic relationship to Athapascan. ''International Journal of American Linguistics'' 1.266 – 279.

★ Hamp, Eric P. 1979. Tongass Tlingit and Na-Dene. ''Berkeley Linguistics Society'' 5.460 – 463.

★ Hymes, Dell. 1956. Na-Dene and positional analysis of categories. ''American Anthropologist'' 58.624 – 628.

★ Hymes, Dell. Na-Dene ethnopoetics: A preliminary report: Haida and Tlingit. ''Language and Culture in North America: Studies in Honor of Heinz-Jürgen Pinnow'', ed. by Egon Renner & Michael Dürr, 265 – 311. (Lincom Studies in Native American Linguistics 2). Munich: Lincom Europa.

★ Krauss, Michael E. 1964. Proto-Athapaskan-Eyak and the problem of Na-Dene: The phonology. ''International Journal of American Linguistics'' 30(2).118 – 36.

★ Krauss, Michael E. 1965. Proto-Athapaskan-Eyak and the problem of Na-Dene II: The morphology. ''International Journal of American Linguistics'' 31(1).18 – 28.

★ Krauss, Michael E. 1968. Noun classification systems in Athapaskan, Eyak, Tlingit, and Haida verbs. ''International Journal of American Linguistics'' 34(3).194 – 203.

★ Krauss, Michael E. 1973. Na-Dene. ''Linguistics in North America'', ed. by Thomas A. Sebeok, 903-78. (Current Trends in Linguistics 10). The Hague: Mouton.

★ Leer, Jeff. 1979. ''Proto-Athabaskan verb stem variation, part one: Phonology''. (Alaska Native Language Center Papers 1). Fairbanks, Alaska: Alaska Native Language Center.

★ Leer, Jeff. 1989. Directional systems in Athapaskan and Na-Dene. ''Athapaskan linguistics: Current perspectives on a language family'', ed. by Eung-Do Cook & Keren Rice, ch. 15, pp. 575 – 622. (Trends in linguistics: State of the art reports 15). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. ISBN.

★ Levine, Robert D. 1979. Haida and Na-Dene: A new look at the evidence. ''International Journal of American Linguistics'' 45(2).157 – 70.

★ Pinnow, Heinz-Jürgen. 1962. Two problems of the historical phonology of Na-Dene languages. ''International Journal of American Linguistics'' 28.162 – 166.

★ Pinnow, Heinz-Jürgen. 1964. On the historical position of Tlingit. ''International Journal of American Linguistics'' 30.155 – 164.

★ Pinnow, Heinz-Jürgen. 1966. ''Grundzüge einer historischen Lautlehre des Tlingit''. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz.

★ Pinnow, Heinz-Jürgen. 1968''a''. Genetic relationships versus borrowing in Na-Dene. ''International Journal of American Linguistics'' 34(3).194 – 203.

★ Pinnow, Heinz-Jürgen. 1968''b''. Sprachhistorische Studien zur Verbstammvariation im Tlingit. ''Orbis'' 17.509 – 531.

★ Pinnow, Heinz-Jürgen. 1970. Notes on the classifiers in the Na-Dene languages. ''International Journal of American Linguistics'' 36(1).63 – 67.

★ Pinnow, Heinz-Jürgen. 1976. ''Geschichte der Na-Dene-Forschung''. (Indiana : Beihefte ; 5). Berlin: Mann. ISBN 3-7861-3027-2

★ Rubicz, R., Melvin, K.L., Crawford, M.H. 2002. Genetic Evidence for the phylogenetic relationship between Na-Dene and Yeniseian speakers. ''Human Biology'', Dec(6).743 – 761.

★ Sapir, Edward. 1915. The Na-Dene languages: A preliminary report. ''American Anthropologist'' 17.534 – 558.

★ Thompson, Chad. 1996. The Na-Dene middle voice: An impersonal source of the D-element. ''International Journal of American Linguistics'' 62(4).351 – 378.

See also

★ Athabaskan languages

★ Southern Athabaskan languages

External links

★ Ethnologue.com: Language Family Trees - Na-Dene

★ Alaska Native Language Center