Languages Na-dené

The family Na-dené gathers the languages of part of the people of origin of the North America; she includes/understands the Langues athapascanes, as well as the languages eyak and tlingit.

Classification

The family Na-dené includes/understands:

The navajo is the language of the family Na-dené having the vastest diffusion; she is spoken in Arizona, New Mexico, and in various areas of the south-west of the the United States. The other languages athapascanes are spoken with the Canada, in Alaska, like in certain parts of the Oregon and the California of north. The eyak was spoken in the south-eastern end about the Alaska (Alaskan panhandle) , but it does not remain about it today than only one speaker.

Genetic proposals for relations

The language haida, with 15 speakers usually speaking it (Mr. Krauss, 1995), was proposed like family member Na-dené, but the majority of the linguists find the evidence insufficient, and continue to classify it like a Isolat.

According to the very discussed classification of Joseph Greenberg, relating to the indigenous languages of North America, the group Na-dené-athapascan constitutes one of the three principal groups of indigenous languages spoken in Americas, each one of them representing a specific wave of migration from Asia towards Americas. The two other groups are made up, for the first by the Langues eskimo-aléoutes, spoken in Alaska and in the Canadian Arctic, and for the second by the Amerindian Langues. This last group, more discussed classification of Greenberg, includes all the indigenous languages of Americas which are neither eskimo-aléoutes nor Na-dené.

The contemporary partisans of the theory of Greenberg, such as Merritt Ruhlen, put forth the assumption that the migration of the people Na-dené of Asia towards the New world proceeded it there six to eight thousand years, that is to say approximately four thousand years after the arrival of the populations amérindophones. Ruhlen supposes that Na-Dené could arrive by boat, and accost initially close to the Îles of the Queen-Charlotte, in the Canadian province current of Colombia-British.

According to the linguistic theory (also discussed) of Sergei Starostin, the family Na-dené would belong to the super-family déné-Caucasian, with the Langues north-Caucasians and the Langues sino-Tibetans. This idea was taken into account by Edward Sapir.

Another suggestion was emitted by professor Edward Vajda (Western Washington University), for which these languages would be in relation to the Siberian languages of Ienisseï.

See too

External bonds

  • Ethnologue.com: Language Family Trees - Na-Dene
  • Alaska Native Language Center
  • Ket and Other Yeniseian Peoples

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