Na-Dene

Na-Dene is language family which includes the Athabascan group of Native American languages, Eyak, and Tlingit. Haida was once considered a member of Na-Dene, but most linguists dispute this today. The language family tree is as follows:

NA-DENE

I. Tlingit 
II. Eyak-Athabascan
  A. Eyak
  B. Athabascan

Navajo is the most widely spoken member of the southern group of the Na-Dene languages, spoken in Arizona, New Mexico, and other regions of the American Southwest; with Dene or Dine, a widely distributed word for a group of Native languages and peoples spoken in Canada, Alaska, and parts of Oregon and northern California. Eyak is spoken in the Alaskan panhandle and today there is only one speaker left.

According to J. Greenberg's highly controversial classification of the languages of Native North America, Na-Dene-Athabascan is one of the three main groups of Native languages spoken here, and represents a distinct wave of migration from Asia to the Americas. The other two are Eskimo-Aleut, spoken in Alaska and the Canadian Arctic; and Amerind, Greenberg's most controversial classification: it includes every language native to North America that is not Eskimo-Aleut or Na-Dene.

External Links

• Ethnologue.com: Ethnologue Report for Na-Dene Language Family Trees - Na-Dene

• Alaska Native Language Center