Na-Dene

American  

[nah-dey-nee, nah-dey-ney] / nɑˈdeɪ ni, ˌnɑ deɪˈneɪ /

Or Nadene

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.

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adjective

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

Na-Dene British  

/ nəˈdiːn, nɑːˈdeɪnɪ /

noun

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

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Etymology

Origin of Na-Dene

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

Example Sentences

The Na-Dene migration from Beringia came after the main migration of 15,000 years ago, but the relationship between the two populations remains to be settled.

From New York Times • Mar. 12, 2014

In particular, he looked at Yeniseian and Na-Dene verbs, since languages in both groups have a template of fixed positions before and after the verb for specifying various attributes.

From New York Times • Mar. 12, 2014

But in 2008, Edward Vajda, a linguist at Western Washington University, said he had documented a relationship between Yeniseian, a group of mostly extinct languages spoken along the Yenisei River in central Siberia, and Na-Dene.

From New York Times • Mar. 12, 2014

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.

From New York Times • Mar. 12, 2014

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.

From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond