Southern Athabaskan languages
Southern Athabaskan is a subfamily of Athabaskan languages spoken primarily in the Southwestern United States with two outliers in Oklahoma and Texas. The language is spoken to a much lesser degree in the northern Mexican states of Sonora, Chihuahua, Durango, Coahuila, 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 Nnee biyáti’ or Ndee biyáti’, and or, respectively.
There are several well-known historical people whose first language was Southern Athabaskan. Geronimo 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.
Family division
The seven Southern Athabaskan languages can be divided into two groups according to the classification of Harry Hoijer: Plains and Southwestern. Plains Apache is the only member of the Plains Apache group. The Southwestern group can be further divided into two subgroups Western and Eastern. The Western subgroup consists of Western Apache, Navajo, Mescalero, and Chiricahua. The Eastern subgroup consists of Jicarilla and Lipan.I. Plains Apache
II. Southwestern
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.
Mescalero and Chiricahua are considered different languages even though they are mutually intelligible. Western Apache 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.
Phonology
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.Consonants
Southern Athabaskan languages generally have a consonant inventory similar to the set of 33 consonants below :- Only Navajo and Western Apache have glottalized nasals.
Orthography (consonants)
Some spelling conventions:
- Fricatives and are both written as h.
- The fricative is usually written as h, but after o it may be written as hw, especially in Western Apache.
- The fricative is written gh the majority of the time, but before i and e it is written as y, and before o it is written as w.
- All words that begin with a vowel are pronounced with a glottal stop ’. This glottal stop is never written at the beginning of a word.
- Some words are pronounced either as d or n or nd, depending on the dialect of the speaker. This is represented in the consonant table above as. The same is true with b and m in a few words.
- In many words n can occur in a syllable by itself in which case it is a syllabic. This is not indicated in the spelling.
Vowels
| Front | Central | Back | |
| High | |||
| Mid | |||
| Low |
These vowels may also be short or long and oral or nasal. Nasal vowels are indicated by an ogonek diacritic ˛ in Western Apache, Navajo, Mescalero, and Chiricahua; in Jicarilla, the nasal vowels are indicated by underlining the vowel, results in 16 different vowels:
IPA equivalents for Western Apache oral vowels:
' =,
' =,
' =,
' =,
' =,
' =,
' =,
' =.
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.
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.
Other practices may be used in other Apachean languages.
Tone
Southern Athabaskan languages are tonal languages. Hoijer and other linguists analyze Southern Athabaskan languages as having four tones :- high
- low
- rising
- falling
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:
- high tone: á
- low tone: a
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:
- rising: aá
- falling: áa
Here are some vowel contrasts involving nasalization, tone, and length from Chiricahua Apache:
Comparative phonology
The Southern Athabascan branch was defined by Harry Hoijer primarily according to its merger of stem-initial consonants of the Proto-Athabascan series ' and ' into '.| Proto- Athabascan | Navajo | Western Apache | Chiricahua | Mescalero | Jicarilla | Lipan | Plains Apache | |
| "handle fabric-like object" | -tsooz | -tsooz | -tsuuz | -tsuudz | -tsoos | -tsoos | -tsoos | |
| "stone" | tsé | tséé | tsé | tsé | tsé | tsí | tséé |
Hoijer 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, Chiricahua, and Mescalero based on the merger of Proto-Apachean ' and ' 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:
He later revised his proposal in 1971 when he found that Plains Apache did not participate in the ' 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 | |
| "big" | -tsaa | -tsaa | -tsaa | -tsaa | -cha |
Morris Opler 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, 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 that since Plains Apache does not merge Proto-Athabascan , 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 | 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’ |