Lower Tanana language

Lower Tanana (also Tanana and/or Middle Tanana) is an endangered language spoken in Interior Alaska in the lower Tanana River villages of Minto and Nenana. Of about 380 Tanana people in the two villages, about 30 still speak the language. As of 2010, “Speakers who grew up with Lower Tanana as their first language can be found only in the 250-person village of Minto.”^[3] It is one of the large family of Athabaskan languages, also known as Dené.

Lower Tanana
Menhti Kenaga
Native to	United States
Region	Alaska (middle Yukon River, Koyukuk River)
Ethnicity	400 Tanana (2007)[1]
Native speakers	1 (2020)[1]
Language family	Dené–Yeniseian? Na-Dené Athabaskan Northern Athabaskan Lower Tanana
Writing system	Latin (Northern Athabaskan alphabet)
Official status
Official language in	Alaska[2]
Language codes
ISO 639-3	taa
Glottolog	lowe1425
ELP	(Lower) Tanana

The Athabaskan (or Dené) bands who formerly occupied a territory between the Salcha and the Goodpaster rivers spoke a distinct language that linguists term the Middle Tanana language.

Dialects

• Toklat area dialect (Tutlʼot)
• Minto Flats-Nenana River dialect: Minto (Menhti) and Nenana (Nina Noʼ)
• Chena River dialect: Chena Village (Chʼenoʼ)
• Salcha River dialect: Salcha (Sol Chaget)

Vocabulary samples

• dena “man”
• trʼaxa “woman”
• setseya “my grandfather”
• setsu “my grandmother”
• xwtʼana “clan”
• ddheł “mountain”
• tu “black bear”
• tsonee "brown bear"
• bedzeyh “caribou”
• łiga “dog”
• beligaʼ “his/her dog”
• kʼwyʼ “willow”
• katreth “moccasin”
• trʼiyh “canoe”
• yoyekoyh “Northern Lights”
• tena “trail”
• khwnʼa “river”
• t’eede gaay “girl” (Middle Tanana)

Phonology

Consonants

		Labial	Dental	Alveolar			Post- alveolar	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
				plain	sibilant	lateral
Plosive	plain	p	tθ	t	ts	tɬ	tʃ	tʂ		k	ʔ
	aspirated		tθʰ	tʰ	tsʰ	tɬʰ	tʃʰ	tʂʰ		kʰ
	ejective		tθʼ	tʼ	tsʼ	tɬʼ	tʃʼ	tʂʼ		kʼ
Fricative	voiceless		θ		s	ɬ	ʃ			x	h
	voiced		ð		z					ɣ
Sonorant		w		n		l			j

Vowels

Vowel sounds in Tanana are /a æ ɪ~i ʊ~u ə/.

	Front	Central	Back
Close	ɪ ~ i		ʊ ~ u
Mid		ə
Open	æ	a

Songs

In a 2008–2009 project, linguist Siri Tuttle of the University of Alaska's Native Language Center “worked with elders to translate and document song lyrics, some on file at the language center and some recorded during the project.”^[4]

“The Minto dialect of Tanana ... allows speakers to occasionally change the number of syllables in longer words.”^[4]