Southern Athabaskan languages

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Southern Athabascan
Southern Athabaskan, Southern Athapaskan, Apachean
Geographic
distribution:		 Southwestern United States
Genetic
classification:		 Na-Dené
 Athabaskan
  Southern Athabascan
Subdivisions:
Western Apachean
Eastern Apachean
Pre-contact distribution of Southern Athabaskan languages

Southern Athabaskan (also Apachean) is a subfamily of Athabaskan languages spoken primarily in the North American Southwest (including Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Sonora) with two outliers in Oklahoma and Texas. These languages are spoken by various groups of Apache and Navajo peoples.

Western Apaches call their language Nnee biyáti’ or Ndee biyáti’. Navajos call their language Diné bizaad.

There are several well known historical people whose first language was Southern Athabaskan. Geronimo (Goyaałé) who spoke Chiricahua was a famous raid and war leader. Manulito who spoke Navajo is famous for his pre and post Long walk of the Navajos leadership.

Contents

[edit] Family division

The seven Southern Athabaskan languages can be divided into 2 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.


I. Plains

1 Plains Apache (a.k.a. Kiowa-Apache)

II. Southwestern

A. Western
i. Chiricahua-Mescalero
2. Chiricahua
a. Chiricahua proper
b. Warm Springs
3. Mescalero
4. Navajo
5. Western Apache (a.k.a. Coyotero Apache)
a. Dilzhe’e (a.k.a. Tonto, Northern Tonto, Southern Tonto)
b. White Mountain
c. San Carlos
B. Eastern
6. Jicarilla
7. 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 (Ethnologue considers them the same language). 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 (in fact Lipan may already be 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 (1998 N.Y. Times, April 9, p. A20).

[edit] Sounds (Phonology)

Note: This page or section contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA chart for English for a pronunciation key.

All Southern Athabaskan languages have somewhat similar phonologies. The description below will concentrate mostly on Western Apache. You can expect minor variations of this description in other related languages (e.g., cf. Navajo, Jicarilla, Chiricahua).

[edit] Consonants

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 unaspirated p t ʦ tɬ ʧ k (kʷ)  
aspirated   tʰ ʦʰ tɬʰ ʧʰ kʰ (kʷʰ)  
glottalized   t’ ʦ’ tɬ’ ʧ’ k’ ʔ
prenasalized/
voiced		 (mb) (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)  
  • Only Navajo and Western Apache have glottalized nasals.

[edit] orthography (consonants)

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 [t’] t’ [ j ] y
[k] g [kʰ] k [k’] k’ [h] h
[ʦ] dz [ʦʰ] ts [ʦ’] ts’ [ʔ] ’
[ʧ] j [ʧʰ] ch [ʧ’] ch’ [l] l
[tɮ] dl [tɬʰ] tł [tɬ’] tł’ [ɬ] ł
[p] b [pʰ] p [mb] b/m [nd] d/n/nd
[s] s [ʃ] sh [m] m [n] n
[z] z [ʒ] zh [ʔm] ’m [ʔn] ’n
[x] h            
[ɣ] gh            

Some spelling conventions:

  1. Fricatives [h] and [x] are both written as h. (see also #2 below)
  2. The fricative [x] is usually written as h, but after o it may be written as hw, especially in Western Apache (may be pronounced as [xʷ]).
  3. The fricative [ɣ] is written gh the majority of the time, but before i and e it is written as y (& may be pronounced as [ʝ]), and before o it is written as w (& may be pronounced as [ɣʷ]).
  4. All words that begin with a vowel are pronounced with a glottal stop ’ [ʔ]. This glottal stop is never written at the beginning of a word.
  5. 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 [nd]. The same is true with b and m in a few words.
  6. In many words n can occur in a syllable by itself in which case it is a syllabic [n̩]. This is not indicated in the spelling.

[edit] Vowels

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 ˛ (borrowed from Polish orthography) in Western Apache, Navajo, and Mescalero, while in Jicarilla the nasal vowels are indicated by underlining the vowel and in Fort Sill Chiricahua nasal vowels are indicated with a cedilla. This results in sixteen 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/u̧).

Other practices may be used in other Apachean languages.

[edit] Tone

Southern Athabaskan languages are tonal languages. Hoijer and other linguists analyze Southern Athabaskan languages as having 4 tones (using Americanist transcription system):

  • high (marked with acute accent ´, Example: á)
  • low (marked with grave accent `, Example: à)
  • rising (marked with háček ˇ, Example: ǎ)
  • falling (marked with circumflex ˆ, Example: â)

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 while leaving low tone unmarked:

  • high tone: á
  • low tone: a

So now 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, and vice versa for falling tone:

  • rising: aá (instead of Americanist: ǎ·)
  • falling: áa (instead of Americanist: â·)

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:

cha̧a̧  'feces'
chaa  'beaver'
shiban  'my buckskin'
shibán  'my bread'
bik’ai’  'his hip'
bík’ai’  'his stepmother'
hah’aał  'you two are going to chew it'
hah’ał  'you two are chewing it'

[edit] Comparative phonology

The 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
thou 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 łį́’chaa’á 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 xéh xáí
egg -ghęęzhii -gheezhe -ghęęzh -gheezhi -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 -zhaa’ -zhaa -jaa -jaa -jaa
eye -náá’ -ⁿdáa -náá -ⁿdáá -ⁿdáa
nose -´-chį́į́h -´-chį́ -chį́h -chį́sh -´-chį́sh
mouth -zéé’ -zé -zé’ -zé’ -zí’
tooth -ghoo’ -ghoo -ghoo’ -ghoo -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’

[edit] Grammar

See Southern Athabascan grammar.

[edit] External links

[edit] Bibliography

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