Family Division
The seven Southern Athabaskan languages can be divided into 2 groups according to the classification of Harry Hoijer: (I) Plains and (II) Southwestern. Plains Apache is the only member of the Plains Apache group. The Southwestern group can be further divided into two subgroups (A) Western and (B) Eastern. The Western subgroup consists of Western Apache, Navajo, Mescalero, and Chiricahua. The Eastern subgroup consists of Jicarilla and Lipan.
I. Plains (AKA Kiowa–Apache)
II. Southwestern
- A. Western
- 1. Chiricahua-Mescalero
- a. Chiricahua
- i. Chiricahua proper
- ii. Warm Springs
- b. Mescalero
- a. Chiricahua
- 2. Navajo (Navahu˙)
- 3. Western Apache (AKA Coyotero Apache)
- a. Tonto (Northern Tonto, Southern Tonto)
- b. White Mountain
- c. San Carlos
- d. Cibecue (ˀa˙paču)
- 1. Chiricahua-Mescalero
- B. Eastern
- 1. Jicarilla (Apaches De La Xicarilla)
- 2. Lipan
Hoijer's classification is based primarily on the differences of the pronunciation of the initial consonant of noun and verb stems. His earlier 1938 classification had only two branches with Plains Apache grouped together with the other Eastern languages (i.e. with Jicarilla and Lipan).
Mescalero and Chiricahua are considered different languages even though they are mutually intelligible (Ethnologue considers them the same language). Western Apache (especially the Dilzhe'e variety) and Navajo are closer to each other than either is to Mescalero/Chiricahua. Lipan Apache and Plains Apache are nearly extinct (in fact Lipan may already be extinct). Chiricahua is severely endangered. Mescalero, Jicarilla, and Western Apache are considered endangered as well, but fortunately children are still learning the languages although the number of child speakers continues to decline. Navajo is one of the most vigorous North American languages, but use among first-graders has declined from 90% to 30% in recent years (1998 N.Y. Times, April 9, p. A20).
Read more about this topic: Southern Athabaskan Languages
Famous quotes containing the words family and/or division:
“In the capsule biography by which most of the people knew one another, I was understood to be an Air Force pilot whose family was wealthy and lived in the East, and I even added the detail that I had a broken marriage and drank to get over it.... I sometimes believed what I said and tried to take the cure in the very real sun of Desert D’Or with its cactus, its mountain, and the bright green foliage of its love and its money.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)
“If the technology cannot shoulder the entire burden of strategic change, it nevertheless can set into motion a series of dynamics that present an important challenge to imperative control and the industrial division of labor. The more blurred the distinction between what workers know and what managers know, the more fragile and pointless any traditional relationships of domination and subordination between them will become.”
—Shoshana Zuboff (b. 1951)