Na-Dene

Na-Dene is an alternative name for the Athabascan group of Native American languages and peoples.

The word is formed from Navajo, the most widely spoken member of the southern group of languages, spoken in Arizona, New Mexico, and other regions of the American Southwest; with Dene or Dine, a widely distributed word for a group of Native languages and peoples spoken in Canada, Alaska, and parts of Oregon and northern California; these languages include Slavey, Chipewyan, and Tlingit.

According to Joseph Greenberg's highly controversial classification of the languages of Native North America, Na-Dene-Athabascan is one of the three main groups of Native languages spoken here, and represents a distinct wave of migration from Asia to the Americas. The other two are Inuit-Aleut-Yupik, spoken in Alaska and the Canadian Arctic; and Amerind, Greenberg's most controversial classification: it includes every language native to North America that is not Inuit-Aleut-Yupik or Na-Dene.