California Athapascan Home Page

The Athabaskan languages formerly spoken in the northern third of Mendocino and the southern half of Humboldt counties in northwestern California fall into three broad groups of closely related dialects: Hupa-Chilula, Mattole-Bear River, and Eel River (including Cahto and the "Kuneste" (from koneest'ee', "person") dialects: Lassik, Nongatl, Sinkyone, Wailaki). Of these languages only Hupa is still spoken.

The main focus of these pages for the near future will be Southern California Athabackan, particularly focussing on the Cahto language, but also the Wailaki/Eel River group of dialects (including "Lassik", "Nongatl", "Sinkyone", and "Wailaki" of the ethnographers). Currently (2/18/2011) the named Eel River dialects now have links accessing the searchable online California Athabaskan databases; other than Cahto, Sinkyone and Wailaki the content of the page at this site is mostly limited to the lexical entries in the database, plus links to other information and the CILC's bibliography for that language/dialect.

For Cahto there is much more content, including a dictionary of ca. 4,000 headwords, the lexical database, an alphabet book and phonological and pronunciation materials, various proof-of-concept examples for future lessons and excercises, and more.

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