Southern Athabascan | |
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Apachean | |
Geographic distribution | Southwestern United States and northern Mexico |
Linguistic classification | Dené–Yeniseian?
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Subdivisions |
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ISO 639-2 / 5 | apa |
Glottolog | apac1239 |
Historical distribution of 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.
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.
The seven Southern Athabaskan languages can be divided into two groups according to the classification of Harry Hoijer: (I) Plains and (II) Southwestern. Plains Apache is the only member of the Plains Apache group. The Southwestern group can be further divided into two subgroups (A) Western and (B) Eastern. The Western subgroup consists of Western Apache, Navajo, Mescalero, and Chiricahua. The Eastern subgroup consists of Jicarilla and Lipan.
Hoijer's classification is based primarily on the differences of the pronunciation of the initial consonant of noun and verb stems. His earlier 1938 classification had only two branches with Plains Apache grouped together with the other Eastern languages (i.e. with Jicarilla and Lipan).
Mescalero and Chiricahua are considered different languages even though they are mutually intelligible. Western Apache (especially the Dilzhe'e variety) and Navajo are closer to each other than either is to Mescalero/Chiricahua. Lipan Apache and Plains Apache are nearly extinct. Chiricahua is severely endangered. Mescalero, Jicarilla, and Western Apache are considered endangered as well, but fortunately children are still learning the languages although the number of child speakers continues to decline. Navajo is one of the most vigorous North American languages, but use among first-graders has declined from 90% to 30% in recent years (1998 N.Y. Times, April 8, p. A1). [1]
The Southern Athabaskan languages spoken in Mexico are regulated by the Instituto Nacional de Lenguas Indígenas (INALI) and have the official status of national languages of Mexico. To revitalize the languages, the institute created a community based Language Planning Council with native speakers to establish and develop grammar rules and the normalization of the writing system, an official alphabet has been validated since then while other grammar topics are still in development. [2]
All Southern Athabaskan languages are somewhat similar in their phonology. The following description will concentrate on Western Apache. One can expect minor variations for other related languages (such as Navajo, Jicarilla, Chiricahua).
Southern Athabaskan languages generally have a consonant inventory similar to the set of 33 consonants below (based mostly on Western Apache):
Labial | Alveolar | Alveolar | Lateral | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
(affricate series) | ||||||||
Stop/ Affricate | unaspirated | p | t | ts | tɬ | tʃ | k (kʷ) | |
aspirated | tʰ | tsʰ | tɬʰ | tʃʰ | kʰ(kʷʰ) | |||
glottalized | tʼ | tsʼ | tɬʼ | tʃʼ | kʼ | ʔ | ||
prenasalized/ voiced | (ⁿb) | (ⁿd/ d / n ) | ||||||
Nasal | simple | m | n | |||||
glottalized | (ˀm) | (ˀn) | ||||||
Fricative | voiceless | s | ɬ | ʃ | x | h | ||
voiced | ( v ) | z | l | ʒ | ɣ (ɣʷ) | |||
Approximant | j | ( w ) |
The practical orthography corresponds to the pronunciation of the Southern Athabaskan languages fairly well (as opposed to the writing systems of English or Vietnamese). Below is a table pairing up the phonetic notation with the orthographic symbol:
IPA | spelling | IPA | spelling | IPA | spelling | IPA | spelling |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
[t] | d | [tʰ] | t | [tʼ] | t’ | [ j ] | y |
[k] | g | [kʰ] | k | [kʼ] | k’ | [h] | h |
[ts] | dz | [tsʰ] | ts | [tsʼ] | ts’ | [ʔ] | ’ |
[tʃ] | j | [tʃʰ] | ch | [tʃʼ] | ch’ | [l] | l |
[tɬ] | dl | [tɬʰ] | tł | [tɬʼ] | tł’ | [ɬ] | ł |
[p] | b | [pʰ] | p | [ⁿb] | b/m | [ⁿd] | d/n/nd |
[s] | s | [ʃ] | sh | [m] | m | [n] | n |
[z] | z | [ʒ] | zh | [ˀm] | ’m | [ˀn] | ’n |
[x] | h | ||||||
[ɣ] | gh |
Some spelling conventions:
Southern Athabaskan languages have four vowels of contrasting tongue dimensions (as written in a general "practical" orthography):
Front | Central | Back | |
---|---|---|---|
High | i | ||
Mid | e | o | |
Low | a |
These vowels may also be short or long and oral (non-nasal) or nasal. Nasal vowels are indicated by an ogonek (or nasal hook) diacritic ˛ in Western Apache, Navajo, Mescalero, and Chiricahua; in Jicarilla, the nasal vowels are indicated by underlining the vowel, results in 16 different vowels:
High-Front | Mid-Front | Mid-Back | Low-Central | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Oral | short | i | e | o | a |
long | ii | ee | oo | aa | |
Nasal | short | į | ę | ǫ | ą |
long | įį | ęę | ǫǫ | ąą |
IPA equivalents for Western Apache oral vowels:
i = [ɪ], ii = [iː], e = [ɛ], ee = [ɛː], o = [o], oo = [ʊː], a = [ɐ], aa = [ɑː].
In Western Apache, there is a practice where orthographic vowels o and oo are written as u in certain contexts. These contexts do not include nasalized vowels, so nasal u never occurs in the orthography. This practice continues into the present (perhaps somewhat inconsistently).
However, in Harry Hoijer and other American linguists' work all o-vowels are written as o. Similarly, Navajo does not use orthographic u, consistently writing this vowel as o.
In Chiricahua and Mescalero, this vowel is written as u in all contexts (including nasalized ų).
Other practices may be used in other Apachean languages.
Southern Athabaskan languages are tonal languages. Hoijer and other linguists analyze Southern Athabaskan languages as having four tones (using Americanist transcription system):
Rising and falling tones are less common in the language (often occurring over morpheme boundaries) and often occur on long vowels. Vowels can carry tone as well as syllabic n (Example: ń).
The practical orthography has tried to simplify the Americanist transcription system by representing only high tone with an acute accent and leaving low tone unmarked:
Then, niziz is written instead of the previous nìzìz.
Additionally, rising tone on long vowels is indicated by an unmarked first vowel and an acute accent on the second. It is vice versa for falling tone:
Nasal vowels carry tone as well, resulting in a two diacritics on vowels with high tone: ą́ (presenting problems for computerization). Recently, de Reuse (2006) has found that Western Apache also has a mid tone, which he indicates with a macron diacritic ¯, as in ō, ǭ. In Chiricahua, a falling tone can occur on a syllabic n: n̂.
Here are some vowel contrasts involving nasalization, tone, and length from Chiricahua Apache:
This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (June 2008) |
The Southern Athabascan branch was defined by Harry Hoijer primarily according to its merger of stem-initial consonants of the Proto-Athabascan series *k̯ and *c into *c (in addition to the widespread merger of *č and *čʷ into *č also found in many Northern Athabascan languages).
Proto- Athabascan | Navajo | Western Apache | Chiricahua | Mescalero | Jicarilla | Lipan | Plains Apache | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
*k̯uʔs | "handle fabric-like object" | -tsooz | -tsooz | -tsuuz | -tsuudz | -tsoos | -tsoos | -tsoos |
*ce· | "stone" | tsé | tséé | tsé | tsé | tsé | tsí | tséé |
Hoijer (1938) divided the Apachean sub-family into an Eastern branch consisting of Jicarilla, Lipan, and Plains Apache and a Western branch consisting of Navajo, Western Apache (San Carlos), Chiricahua, and Mescalero based on the merger of Proto-Apachean *t and *k to k in the Eastern branch. Thus, as can be seen in the example below, when the Western languages have noun or verb stems that start with t, the related forms in the Eastern languages will start with a k:
Western | Eastern | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Navajo | Western Apache | Chiricahua | Mescalero | Jicarilla | Lipan | Plains Apache | |
"water" | tó | tū | tú | tú | kó | kó | kóó |
"fire" | kǫʼ | kǫʼ | kųų | kų | ko̱ʼ | kǫǫʼ | kǫʼ |
He later revised his proposal in 1971 when he found that Plains Apache did not participate in the *k̯/*c merger, to consider Plains Apache to be equidistant from the other languages, now called Southwestern Apachean. Thus, some stems that originally started with *k̯ in Proto-Athabascan start with ch in Plains Apache, but the other languages start with ts.
Proto- Athabascan | Navajo | Chiricahua | Mescalero | Jicarilla | Plains Apache | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
*k̯aʔx̣ʷ | "big" | -tsaa | -tsaa | -tsaa | -tsaa | -cha |
Morris Opler (1975) has suggested that Hoijer's original formulation that Jicarilla and Lipan in an Eastern branch was more in agreement with the cultural similarities between both and their differences from the other Western Apachean groups. Other linguists, particularly Michael Krauss (1973), have noted that a classification based only on the initial consonants of noun and verb stems is arbitrary and when other sound correspondences are considered the relationships between the languages appear to be more complex. Additionally, it has been pointed out by Martin Huld (1983) that since Plains Apache does not merge Proto-Athabascan *k̯/*c, Plains Apache cannot be considered an Apachean language as defined by Hoijer.
Other differences and similarities among the Southern Athabaskan languages can be observed in the following modified and abbreviated Swadesh list:
Navajo | Chiricahua | Western Apache (San Carlos) | Jicarilla | Lipan | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
I | shí | shí | shíí | shí | shí |
you | ni | ⁿdí | ⁿdi | ni | ⁿdí |
we | nihí | náhí | nohwíí | nahí | nahí |
many | łą́ | łą́ | łą́ą́ | łá | łą́ |
one | ła’ | ła’ | ła’- | ła’ | ła’- |
two | naaki | naaki | naaki | naaki | naaki |
big | -tso | -tso | -tso | -tso | -tso |
long | -neez | -neez | -neez | -ⁿdees | -ⁿdiis |
small | -yáázh | -zą́ą́yé | -zhaazh | -zhááh | -zhą́ą́yí |
woman | ’asdzání | ’isdzáń | ’isdzánhń | ’isdzání | ’isdzání |
man | diné | nⁿdé | nnéé | diⁿdé | diⁿdí |
fish | łóó’ | łóí’ | łóg | łógee | łǫ́’ |
dog | łééchą́ą́’í | kéjaa | łį́į́chaayáné | chíníí | nii’łį́ |
louse | yaa’ | yaa | yaa’ | yaa’ | yaa |
tree | tsin | tsin | ch’il | nooshchíí | chish |
leaf | -t’ąą’ | -t’ąą | -t’ąą’ | -t’ąą’ | -t’ąą’ |
meat | -tsį’ | -tsįį | -tsį’ | -tsį | -tsįį |
blood | dił | dił | dił | dił | dił |
bone | ts’in | ts’į’ | ts’in | -ts’in | -ts’įh |
grease | -k’ah | k’ah | k’ah | ik'a | xáí |
egg | -yęęzhii | -gheezhe | -ghęęzh | -yezhii | -ghaish |
horn | -dee’ | -dee’ | -dee’ | -dee’ | -dii’ |
tail | -tsee’ | -tsee’ | -tsee’ | -tsee’ | -dzistsii’ |
feather | -t’a’ | -t’a’ | -t’a’ | -t’a’ | -t’a’ |
hair | -ghaa’ | -ghaa | -ghaa | -ghaa’ | -ghaa |
head | -tsii’ | -tsii | -tsii | -tsii | -tsii’ |
ear | -jaa’ | -zhaa | -jaa | -jaa | -jaa |
eye | -náá’ | -ⁿdáa | -náá | -ⁿdáá | -ⁿdáa |
nose | -´-chį́į́h | -´-chį́ | -chį́h | -chį́sh | -´-chį́sh |
mouth | -zéé’ | -zé | -zé’ | -zé’ | -zí’ |
tooth | -woo’ | -ghoo | -ghoo’ | -woo | -ghoo |
tongue | -tsoo’ | -zaade | -zaad | -zaadi | -zaadi |
claw | -s-gaan | -s-gan | -gan | -s-gan | -s-gąą |
foot | -kee’ | -kee | -kee’ | -kee | -kii |
knee | -god | -go’ | -god | -go’ | -goh |
hand | -´-la’ | -laa | -la’ | -la’ | -laa’ |
Chiricahua is a band of Apache Native Americans.
Navajo or Navaho is a Southern Athabaskan language of the Na-Dené family, through which it is related to languages spoken across the western areas of North America. Navajo is spoken primarily in the Southwestern United States, especially in the Navajo Nation. It is one of the most widely spoken Native American languages and is most widely spoken north of the Mexico–United States border, with almost 170,000 Americans speaking Navajo at home as of 2011.
Tanacross is an endangered Athabaskan language spoken by fewer than 60 people in eastern Interior Alaska.
Athabaskan 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. 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).
The Apache are several Southern Athabaskan language–speaking peoples of the Southwest and the Southern Plains. They are linguistically related to the Navajo. They migrated from the Athabascan homelands in the north into the Southwest between 1000 and 1500 CE.
Lipan Apache are a band of Apache, a Southern Athabaskan Indigenous people, who have lived in the Southwest and Southern Plains for centuries. At the time of European and African contact, they lived in New Mexico, Colorado, Oklahoma, Texas, and northern Mexico. Historically, they were the easternmost band of Apache. Early adopters of horse culture and peyotism, the Lipan Apache hunted bison and farmed.
Mescalero or Mescalero Apache is an Apache tribe of Southern Athabaskan–speaking Native Americans. The tribe is federally recognized as the Mescalero Apache Tribe of the Mescalero Apache Reservation, located in south-central New Mexico.
Ą is a letter in the Polish, Kashubian, Lithuanian, Creek, Navajo, Western Apache, Chiricahua, Osage, Hocąk, Mescalero, Gwich'in, Tutchone, and Elfdalian alphabets. It is formed from the letter a and an ogonek and usually, except in modern Lithuanian and Polish, denotes a nasal a sound.
Morris Edward Opler, American anthropologist and advocate of Japanese American civil rights, was born in Buffalo, New York. He was the brother of Marvin Opler, an anthropologist and social psychiatrist.
Michael E. Krauss was an American linguist, professor emeritus, founder and long-time head of the Alaska Native Language Center. He died on August 11, 2019, four days before his 85th birthday. The Alaska Native Language Archive is named after him.
The Plains Apache language was a Southern Athabaskan language formerly spoken by the Plains Apache, organized as the Apache Tribe of Oklahoma, living primarily around Anadarko in southwest Oklahoma. The language is extinct as of 2008, when Alfred Chalepah, Jr., the last native speaker, died.
Chiricahua is a Southern Athabaskan language spoken by the Chiricahua people in Chihuahua and Sonora, México and in Oklahoma and New Mexico. It is related to Navajo and Western Apache and has been described in great detail by the anthropological linguist Harry Hoijer (1904–1976), especially in Hoijer & Opler (1938) and Hoijer (1946). Hoijer & Opler's Chiricahua and Mescalero Apache Texts, including a grammatical sketch and traditional religious and secular stories, has been converted into an online "book" available from the University of Virginia.
Lipan is an Eastern Southern Athabaskan language spoken by the Lipan Apache in the states of Coahuila and Chihuahua in northern Mexico, some reservations of New Mexico and parts of southern Texas. Lipan belongs to the Na-Dene languages family and it is closely related to Jicarilla language, which is also part of the Eastern Southern Athabaskan languages.
Harry Hoijer was a linguist and anthropologist who worked on primarily Athabaskan languages and culture. He additionally documented the Tonkawa language, which is now extinct. Hoijer's few works make up the bulk of material on this language. Hoijer was a student of Edward Sapir.
The Tsuutʼina language, or Tsúùtʼínà Gūnáhà, is spoken by the people of the Tsuutʼina Nation, whose reserve and community is near Calgary, Alberta. It belongs to the Athabaskan language family, which also include the Navajo and Chiricahua of the south, and the Dene Suline and Tłı̨chǫ of the north.
Jicarilla is an Eastern Southern Athabaskan language spoken by the Jicarilla Apache.
Southern Athabascan is a subfamily of Athabaskan languages spoken in the North American Southwest. Refer to Southern Athabascan languages for the main article.
This article is about the sound system of the Navajo language. The phonology of Navajo is intimately connected to its morphology. For example, the entire range of contrastive consonants is found only at the beginning of word stems. In stem-final position and in prefixes, the number of contrasts is drastically reduced. Similarly, vowel contrasts found outside of the stem are significantly neutralized. For details about the morphology of Navajo, see Navajo grammar.
The Pueblo linguistic area is a Sprachbund consisting of the languages spoken in and near North American Pueblo locations. There are also many shared cultural practices in this area. For example, these cultures share many ceremonial vocabulary terms meant for prayer or song.
Proto-Athabaskan is the reconstructed ancestor of the Athabaskan languages.