Tanacross
| Tanacross | |
|---|---|
| Neeʼaandegʼ | |
| Native to | United States |
| Region | Alaska (middle Tanana River) |
| Ethnicity | 220 Tanana (2007) |
|
Native speakers
|
60 (2007) |
|
Dené–Yeniseian?
|
|
| Latin script | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | |
| Glottolog | tana1290 |
Tanacross (also Transitional Tanana) is an endangered Athabaskan language spoken by fewer than 60 people in eastern Interior Alaska.
The word Tanacross (from "Tanana Crossing") has been used to refer both to a village in eastern Alaska and to an ethnolinguistic group. The modern village of Tanacross is accessible by a short access road from the Alaska Highway, and some speakers now reside in the regional center of Tok, located approximately ten miles east of the village on the highway. In addition several speakers now reside in the nearest commercial center of Fairbanks, located two hundred miles downstream from Tanacross village and accessible by all-weather highway.
Tanacross is the ancestral language of the Mansfield-Kechumstuk and Healy Lake-Joseph Village bands of Tanana Athabaskan people, whose ancestral territory encompassed an area bounded by the Goodpaster River to the west, the Alaska Range to the south, the Fortymile and Tok rivers to the east, and the Yukon Uplands to the north.
In the late nineteenth century trading posts were established at Tanana Crossing, a ford along the Eagle Trail, directly across the Tanana River from the present-day village of Tanacross. A telegraph station followed in 1902, and an Episcopal mission in 1909. Both the Mansfield-Kechumstuk and Healy Lake-Joseph Village bands eventually settled in Tanana Crossing, eventually shortened to Tanacross (McKennan 1959). The village was relocated across the river to its present location in the early 1970s, and most present-day Tanacross speakers live in or near the village of Tanacross.
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Wikipedia