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Language Lineage

Athabaskan-Eyak

The common ancestor of Eyak and the Athabaskan languages, whose close relationship Michael Krauss demonstrated in the 1960s.

c. 3rd – 1st millennium BCE (reconstructed; uncertain)Probably south-central Alaska
On this page
  1. Eyak's Relatives
  2. Rebuilding the Common Ancestor
  3. Where its languages are spoken
  4. Turning points

01

Eyak's Relatives

Until the 1930s Eyak was hardly known. The anthropologist Frederica de Laguna recorded it, and in the 1960s Michael Krauss showed that it is the sister of the whole Athabaskan branch. It shares with Athabaskan the verb structure and the regular correspondences that allow Proto-Athabaskan-Eyak to be reconstructed, but it stands apart from all the Athabaskan languages in its vocabulary and sounds.

02

Rebuilding the Common Ancestor

Krauss set out the case in two papers, 'Proto-Athapaskan-Eyak and the Problem of Na-Dene', published in the International Journal of American Linguistics in 1964 and 1965. His method was the standard comparative one, but applied to a verb built almost entirely of prefixes. He matched Eyak's prefixes with Athabaskan ones slot by slot, including the 'classifier' prefixes that change a verb's voice, and then showed that the consonants of the stems corresponded regularly, series by series, including Athabaskan's several sets of affricates.

The result was important in two ways. It gave Proto-Athabaskan a sister, so that features found in both Eyak and Athabaskan could be pushed back one stage further, to Proto-Athabaskan-Eyak. And it gave a firmer base for comparison with Tlingit, which is much further away: Leer's later correspondences between Tlingit and the rest were worked out against the reconstructed Athabaskan-Eyak forms rather than against any single modern language.

Eyak on its own is only a partial witness, because it was documented late and from few speakers. Much of what can be said about Proto-Athabaskan-Eyak therefore rests on the careful records Krauss made in the 1960s and 1970s.

On the map

Where its languages are spoken

Spoken todayShading marks whole countries, not the regions within them.
  1. United StatesEyak · Northern Athabaskan a few hundred · Pacific Coast Athabaskan · Apachean c. 170,000
  2. CanadaNorthern Athabaskan c. 13,000

Figures are rough first-language estimates, rounded, from censuses and Ethnologue. Counts for small or scattered communities are especially uncertain.

Rings along the limb

Turning points

Oldest first.

  1. Splitc. 3rd – 1st millennium BCEContested

    Eyak and Athabaskan part

    The ancestors of Eyak settle on the south Alaskan coast, while those of the Athabaskans remain in the interior. The date is a rough estimate.

    Figures · Michael Krauss (1934–2019)

    Sources (1)
    • Krauss, Michael E. 1964. Proto-Athapaskan-Eyak and the problem of Na-Dene: The phonology. International Journal of American Linguistics 30(2): 118–131.