Dena’ina (also Tanaina) is the Athabaskan language of the Cook Inlet area of Alaska, with four dialects located:

1. Kenai Peninsula southcentral Alaska
2. Upper Cook Inlet north of Anchorage, Alaska
3. Coastal west side of the Cook Inlet
4. Inland areas of the west side of the Cook Inlet

Dena’ina can also refer to the tribe, the people of which spoke the language.

Of the total Tanaina population of about 900 people, only 75-95 members still speak Dena’ina. James Kari has done extensive work on the language since 1972, including his edition with Alan Boraas of the collected writings of Peter Kalifornsky in 1991.

merge from Tanaina Athabascan

Tanaina Athabascan is a language spoken by a group of Athabaskan people located in Eklutna, Cook Inlet and the Kenai Peninsula of Alaska. The ancestral territory of the Tanaina surrounds Cook Inlet, including the present-day location of Anchorage, Alaska.

Sounds

Unlike many Athabaskan languages, Dena’ina is not a tonal language.

Consonants

The 35 consonants of Dena’ina:

Vowels

The 4 vowels of Dena’ina:

Bibliography

• Mithun, Marianne. (1999). The languages of Native North America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-23228-7 (hbk); ISBN 0-521-29875-X.
• Tenenbaum, Joan. (1978). Morphology and semantics of the Tanaina verb. (Doctoral dissertation, Columbia University).