Na-Dene

Or Na·de·ne

[nah-dey-nee, nah-dey-ney]

noun

1. a group of North American Indian languages, comprising the Athabascan family, Eyak, Tlingit, and Haida, hypothetically considered to be descendants of a single protolanguage: the genetic relationship of either Tlingit or Haida to Athabascan and Eyak is now disputed.

2. the hypothesized protolanguage itself.

adjective

1. of, belonging to, or pertaining to Na-Dene.

Na-Dene

/ nəˈdiːn, nɑːˈdeɪnɪ /

noun

1. a phylum of North American Indian languages including Athapascan, Tlingit, and Haida

Word History and Origins

Origin of Na-Dene¹

First recorded in 1915; name coined by Edward Sapir from assumed reflexes of a single Na-Dene root: Haida na “to live, house,” Tlingit na “people,” unattested Athabascan -ne in dene, representing a word in Athabascan languages for “person, people,” e.g., Navajo diné

Word History and Origins

Origin of Na-Dene¹

from Haida na to dwell + Athapascan dene people; coined by Edward Sapir (1884–1939), American anthropologist

Example Sentences

The researchers also study how these ancient peoples are related to modern populations who speak Eskimo-Aleut, Na-Dene and other languages.

Read more on Nature

This tangled family tree underpins the ancestry of modern speakers of indigenous Na-Dene and Eskimo-Aleut languages.

Read more on Science Magazine

With the exception of the Eskimo-Aleut language family of the American Arctic and the Na-Dene language family of Alaska, northwestern Canada, and the U.S.

Read more on Literature

He discovered that Indians formed “three New World dental clusters” corresponding to Greenberg’s Aleut, Na-Dene, and Amerind.

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The eastward group reached North America and became the Na-Dene speakers, while the westward group returned to Siberia and settled along the Yenisei River.

Read more on New York Times