My notes on Athabaskan languages

[De Reuse, Willem]

Oh, and I forgot to say.  Plains Apache is extinct.   The last speaker died a few years ago.  But as often happens, there might well be semi-speakers who have raised to the level of being considered the speakers.
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From: ATHAPBASCKAN-L [ATHAPBASCKAN-L at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG] on behalf of De Reuse, Willem [WillemDeReuse at MY.UNT.EDU]
Sent: Saturday, August 14, 2010 7:26 PM
To: ATHAPBASCKAN-L at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG
Subject: Re: My notes on Athabaskan languages

Dear James and Athabascanists:

Thanks for the notes.  Let me make some comments regarding the languages I have worked on.

Stuff on Han looks good.

More comments on III Southern.  What I am gonna say here supersedes what you can read on Wikipedia (which is otherwise very accurate, and written by a former student of mine).  III Southern is definitely a clear subgroup, and Sarcee is not part of it.  I have heard all the III Southern languages, or people claiming to speak these languages.  III, like I Northern, is more of a dialect chain (or more exactly: pieces of a former dialect chain) than people realize, with the most divergent language being Plains Apache at one end of the chain, and the next most divergent language being Navajo at the other end of the chain.  For example, Chiricahua is lexically intermediate between Western Apache and Mescalero, and Lipan is lexically (and to some extent phonetically) intermediate between Jicarilla and Plains Apache, although a lot closer to Jicarilla, etc.

All that really justifies the West Apachean/East Apachean split is the famous PA *t- to t- versus PA *t- to k- change.  But if you take that seriously, Plains Apachean should be East Apachean too.  And there are minor sound changes that actually group Jicarilla-Lipan with Chiricahua-Mescalero, and some lexical evidence as well.  But I'd leave the 3-way split as is for now.

Comments on Lipan.  I think it is safe to say that Lipan is extinct, although there are several people on the Mescalero reservation who speak Mescalero with a Lipan accent/lexical influence, and consider themselves to speak Lipan.  So it is not entirely PC to say that it is extinct.

Comments on Western Apache, all in Arizona.  I have suggested in unpublished papers and in one published book (de Reuse and Goode 2006:2, full reference easy to find on Wikipedia), that there are three (not four or five) main geographic dialects of Western Apache (on the basis of phonological, morphological, and lexical traits; each of them has subdialectal variation and there is considerable dialect mixture).  I would like to call them:  (1) White Mountain-Coyotero, (2) San Carlos-Cibecue, and (3) Dilzhe'e.  Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres...  One problem is that these basic geographic dialects badly cross-cut the reservation boundaries.  Again these three basic dialects from some sort of chain, with (3) Dilzhe'e being the most divergent lexically and phonologically.  That makes sense geographically, since the San Carlos and White Mountain reservations border each other, and the Dilzhe'e reservations are farther to the northwest.

White Mountain is spoken on the White Mountain Reservation, but also at the town of Bylas on the San Carlos reservation, where it is sometimes called Coyotero, therefore I would suggest the term White Mountain-Coyotero.

The variety called Cibecue is actually a bit closer to the San Carlos variety, although the town of Cibecue is on the White Mountain reservation, so I suggest the term San Carlos-Cibecue.

The town of San Carlos is an Apache Byzantium, all varieties of Western Apache can be heard there, but there is something like a San Carlos variety (which would be short for Pinal-Aravaipa-Apache Peaks-San Carlos).

The majority dialects on the Yavapai-Apache reservation at Camp Verde, the Tonto Apache reservation at Payson and the Yavapai-Prescott  reservation (this last one mostly Yavapai) were formerly called Tonto, now Dilzhe'e.  Note Dilzhe'e, the official English spelling of this Apache word.   (I can send you IPA trancriptions of what the Apache word is, and how English speakers pronounce it).  People from the Yavapai-Apache reservation at Camp Verde realize that "Tonto" is a derogatory Spanish word (not to mention reminders of the "Lone Ranger" TV series) and therefore now use Dilzhe'e.  However, it would be awkward to put an asterisk next to "Tonto" because "Tonto" is still, as of this writing, part of the official name of the Tonto Apache Tribe at Payson.  There is also quite a bit a variation within Tonto subdialects, which is why Grenville Goodwin (1942) originally distinguished "Northern Tonto" from "Southern Tonto".  This variation is more phonological than lexical, and modern Dilzhe'e speakers object to the terms "Northern" and "Southern Tonto".

Let me know if you want more info or references.

Best,

Willem de Reuse
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From: ATHAPBASCKAN-L [ATHAPBASCKAN-L at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG] on behalf of James Crippen [jcrippen at GMAIL.COM]
Sent: Wednesday, August 04, 2010 7:04 PM
To: ATHAPBASCKAN-L at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG
Subject: My notes on Athabaskan languages

I’ve started to put my notes on Athabaskan languages online. The main page is at

http://drangle.com/~james/athabaskan/athabaskan-family.html

I would appreciate comments, either sent to me personally or here on
the list. Please remember that I’m not aiming for consensus, but
I do intend to be somewhat ecumenical. I would especially appreciate
information like the indigenous language names, alternate names, and
so forth. If I’ve missed a language let me know what it is and where
to put it, and how to pronounce its name in English. Also note that
it’s not finished, I got tired of doing the conversion by the time I
got through the Northern languages, so it’s still spotty below that,
but soon to be fixed.

Feel free to explore the rest of my site too.

Cheers,
James