My notes on Athabaskan languages

[De Reuse, Willem]

Hi all, James, Anthony:

No doubt, as Reichard, Saville-Troike, and also Jim Kari (in the important Chapter 4 of his dissertation) have pointed out, there is quite a bit of dialectal variation in Navajo.  Nevertheless, considering the geographical extent of the language and the number of speakers, I would still say we are not going to find the range of lexical and phonological variation that we find in Western Apache.  That is because Navajos are descendants of one small group of Apacheans who underwent a spectacular population explosion, whereas Western Apaches are descendants of a number of relatively isolated groups, who remained small, but were concentrated on a few reservations.

This said, I hear Navajos distinguish between Eastern and Western Navajo. Possibly the most divergent Navajo dialect is that of the Alamo Reservation, in N.M., fairly far south from the big main Reservation.  Is Jalon Begay, U.C. Santa Barbara, on this list?  He has done research on the Alamo Navajos, and I got this idea from him.  I am also guessing there is more dialectal differentiation in N.M. than in Arizona, because most of the original Navajo homeland was in northern New Mexico, and they spread out in all directions, but especially west, from there.

Willem de Reuse
________________________________________
From: ATHAPBASCKAN-L [ATHAPBASCKAN-L at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG] on behalf of James Crippen [jcrippen at GMAIL.COM]
Sent: Wednesday, August 18, 2010 3:43 PM
To: ATHAPBASCKAN-L at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG
Subject: Re: My notes on Athabaskan languages

On Wed, Aug 18, 2010 at 09:04, Anthony Webster <awebster at siu.edu> wrote:
> Willem and Athabaskanists,
> Thanks for your comments on the Apachean languages. What you say about the
> relations between the various Apachean languages is very much what I have
> been noticing and thinking about for awhile. Just one addition, at some
> point, the hard work of mapping the various dialects of Navajo will need to
> be done. Navajo is not homogeneous (Reichard's famous little article about
> linguistic diversity among Navajos springs to mind, as does Saville-Troike's
> work as well). Many Navajos that I have worked with can give (and enjoy
> giving) examples of various lexical and phonological diacritics that mark
> emplaced ways of speaking (i.e., "that's how they say it in Tuba" or "that's
> how they say it in Shiprock", etc.). best, akw

Thanks for bringing this up, Anthony. I have been wondering a bit
myself about Navajo dialectology. Although I know next to nothing
about the language, a population that large and spread out ought to
have some kind of relatively systematic variation. I haven’t seen
anything in the Navajo literature I’ve skimmed on any sort of
dialects, although I probably haven’t looked hard enough. Is there any
sort of even approximate list of dialects or other sorts of social
variation that I could add to the Navajo section? Whether it’s from a
published source or not, having something is better than nothing.

Same thing goes for other big languages like Dene Suline/Chipewyan.
If anyone wants to chime in with some info, feel free to post to the
list. Or if you’re shy you can email me directly.

I’ve updated my Athabaskan languages page with comments from the last
week or so. Once again:

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

Cheers,
James