Talk:Na-Dené languages

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One point - Na-Dene strictly refers to Athabaskan-Eyak-Tlingit+Haida(Which is strongly contested as a language family.), whereas this page only refers to Athabaskan-Eyak-Tlingit. Should it be moved? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 62.254.128.5 (talk • contribs) .

I have always been under the impression that Na-Dené refers to Althabaskan-Eyak-Tlingit, and that although Haida was once considered part of the family and linguists will still occasionally make proposals for its conclusion, there is no significant evidence.
Of course according to Greenberg's usage of the term, it does indeed include Haida (which has many similarities to the Na-Dené languages) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Node ue (talk • contribs) .
Na-Dene is used in two senses:
  1. Sapir's Na-Dene: includes Haida
  2. current Na-Dene: does not include Haida
Sometimes Athabaskan-Eyak-Tlingit is used instead of Na-Dene so that there wont be any confusion with Sapir's Na-Dene. — ishwar  (SPEAK) 19:36, 2005 Apr 17 (UTC)
The term Na-Dené is composed of na, the Haida word for 'house', and dené, a version of the common Athabaskan term for 'person'. Strictly speaking, "Na-Dené" explicitly includes Haida and therefore should not be used for Tlingit-Eyak-Athabaskan. --N. Pharris (talk) 09:02, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
Enrico's recent work (including a massive 2-vol dictionary of Haida) effectively re-opens the controversy. I added a sentence on Enrico and also some references on the controversy. --Gholton 20:56, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
It was proved that Na-Dene speakers came from southern Siberia/Mongolia. Their genetic origin is the same like in speakers of the Altaic family. So, was there any attempt to connect them with the Altaic speakers? The Dene-Caucasian theory is an utter nonsense, by the way. It connects populations that have absolutely nothing in common genetically. 82.100.61.114 08:11, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
This makes no sense. You're confusing genetic and linguistic findings, which really don't need to have anything to do with each other: one cannot make any linguistic conclusions from genetic data (or vice versa). Comparative linguistics classifies languages, not their speakers. --AAikio 12:00, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] accent?

Why the accent Na-Dené rather than Na-Dene? I have only seen the unaccented version in print. --Gholton 20:54, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Name?

What is the etymology of the name "Na-Dené"? It does not seem very obvious. --Tropylium (talk) 21:36, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

it comes from the common word for "human" in the languages which is either related to the root dené.·Maunus· ·ƛ· 21:40, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Dené-Yeniseic

The link between the Yeniseian and Athabaskan-Eyak-Tlingit seems to have been proven (http://www.uaf.edu/anlc/dy2008.html). I'll try to mention this in the article somehow as soon as I have some time. Cheers! --Pet'usek [petrdothrubisatgmaildotcom] 10:04, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

This does look very promising indeed.·Maunus· ·ƛ· 12:48, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
I added a link to Vajda's paper. I also removed a sentence about how the Athabaskan/Eyak/Tlingit-Yeniseian link "support[s] the controversial theory of Starostin and others." An AET-Yeniseian link has nothing to say one way or another about whether or not these languages are in turn related to, say, Caucasian or Sino-Tibetan or whatever, so to say it lends any support to Starostin's (and others') wider-ranging proposals is false. --Miskwito (talk) 20:57, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
Okay, update: I created a new subsection within the genetic relationships section to discuss the Dene-Yeniseic link. I also removed a statement about genetic studies contradicting the evidence (which had originally said the study confirmed the evidence). Genes and languages don't necessarily correspond, so genetic studies can't prove or disprove linguistic relationships one way or another, although they can make suggestions. --Miskwito (talk) 21:28, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
Are there plans to create a higher-level Dene-Yeniseic taxonomic classification in the infoboxes? Would anyone object if I added this to the infobox? Thefamouseccles (talk) 08:08, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] CBC Radio interview with Vajda

It was on the nightly radio news show As It Happens tonight - the 3rd of April programme I guess. I'm not sure if it's suitable for the External Links, but chances are there'll be a permanent online recording of the show; I think As it Happens is fully archived....not sure about that but worth checking...Skookum1 (talk) 05:44, 4 April 2008 (UTC)