Updates to Athabaskan notes

[Bill Poser]

There is actually a process for correcting classifications in the
Ethnologue/ISO listings. I'll have to check the current status, but there
was a round of it a year or two ago in which they called for submissions and
had forms to fill out and so forth. SSILA had a committee that worked on
this. Further information can probably be obtained at the LSA/SSILA meeting.

The Ethnologue has, by the way, corrected the old classification in which
Babine-Witsuwit'en was included in Carrier. The problem at this point is the
opposite: the Ethnologue and ISO recognize a "Southern Carrier" language
distinct from "Carrier". The information they give as to what they mean by
"Southern Carrier" is inconsistent (and the term has been used in several
ways), but it seems that what they mean are what I call the Blackwater
dialects. In my opinion, not only do these varieties not constitute a
distinct language, but they actually form half of what I call the "Southern"
group of Carrier dialects. That is, I think the subgrouping is:

Stuart/Trembleur Lake (Nak'azdli, Tl'azt'en, Yekooche)
Southern
   Fraser/Nechako
        (Cheslatta, Stellako, Nadleh, Saik'uz, Lheidli)
   Blackwater (Red Bluff, Nazko, Kluskus, Ulkatcho)
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