Na-Dene

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Na-De·ne

also Na·Dé·né (nä′dā′nē, -dā-nā′)

A North American Indian language family that includes the Athabaskan languages, Tlingit, and possibly Haida.

[Haida náa-, house, to live, and Tlingit naa, tribe + Proto-Athabaskan *dənæ, person.]

Na-De′ne adj.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Na-Dene

(nɑːˈdeɪnɪ; nəˈdiːn) or

Na-Déné

(Languages) a phylum of North American Indian languages including Athapascan, Tlingit, and Haida

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

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

Na-De•ne

(nɑˈdeɪ ni, ˌnɑ deɪˈneɪ)

n.

a proposed genetic grouping of American Indian languages that includes the Athabaskan family, Tlingit, and Haida.

[1915; Haida na to live, house, Tlingit na people, Athabaskan *-ne in dene, representing a word in Athabaskan languages for “person, people”]

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Noun

Na-Dene - a family of North American Indian languages

American-Indian language, Amerind, Amerindian language, American Indian, Indian - any of the languages spoken by Amerindians

Haida - the Na-Dene language of the Haida

Tlingit - the Na-Dene language spoken by the Tlingit

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References in periodicals archive ?

A proposed language family known as the Dene-Yeniseian suggests that there are common language elements between the North American Na-Dene languages and the Yeniseian languages of Central Siberia.

Language 'evolution' may help shed light on human migration out of Beringia

Some previous studies of human migration into the Americas have focused on two types of languages found in North America: the Na-Dene language family, including Navajo, Apache and Tlingit, and non-Na-Dene languages, including Algonquin, Ojibwe and Chippewa.

Details of migration into the Americas revealed in DNA: analysis of genetic material from modern people shows three distinct waves of arrival

The Dene-Yeniseian hypothesis refers to the theory of some linguists that Ket, a language from the Yeneseian family of languages used in Central Siberia, is genealogically related to Na-Dene languages, which are used throughout parts of northwestern North America.

The Dene-Yeniseian connection; anthropological papers of the University of Alaska

(11) Greenberg, based on his own unpublished research, claimed that Native American languages could be grouped into three families: Na-Dene (Athapaskan, Tlingit and Haida-NW coast); Aleut-Eskimo; and a general "Amerind" family for all of the remaining Native American groups.