Tanacross Language - Dialectology

Dialectology

Until very recently Lower Tanana was spoken at Salcha (Saagescheeg), just west of the Tanacross language area near the mouth of the Salcha River. As might be expected, Salcha shares many features with Healy Lake, the westernmost dialect of Tanacross, though the two are readily distinguished as separate languages (in particular by the presence of high marked tone in Healy Lake). With the passing of the Salcha dialect, the nearest Lower Tanana villages are located more than one hundred miles downstream at Nenana and Minto, and the linguistic boundary between Tanacross and Lower Tanana is now even more distinct.

The Tanacross linguistic region is geographically small by Alaska Athabaskan standards and hence contains little dialectal variation. A small number of phonological features distinguish two major dialects. The Mansfield-Kechumstuk (MK) dialect of Tanacross was formerly spoken at Mansfield Lake (dihTa$òd/) and Kechumstuk, until those bands combined and later moved to Tanacross village. This is the dialect spoken in Tanacross village and the dialect upon which this study is based. Unless indicated otherwise reference to Tanacross language should be assumed to mean the MK dialect. A second dialect of Tanacross is spoken at Healy Lake and Dot Lake to the west, and formerly at Joseph Village, and is linguistically distinguished by the retention of schwa suffixes.