Why the numbers are hard to pin down
People often ask how many speakers each Apache language has. The honest answer is that nobody can give one reliable figure, and anyone who does should be read with caution. The answer also differs for each language, because the Apache nations are not one people and their languages are not one language.
Several things make counting difficult.
- Different questions. A census might ask what language a household speaks at home. A language survey might count only fluent first-language speakers. A community program might include semi-speakers and active learners. These produce very different totals for the same language.
- Different dates. Published figures are often a decade or more old. Speaker numbers can fall quickly when the oldest fluent speakers pass away, and can rise slowly when classes succeed.
- Boundaries between languages. Chiricahua and Mescalero are sometimes counted together and sometimes apart, and Western Apache includes several dialects. A “Western Apache” count may or may not include each one.
- Privacy and definitions. Nations may reasonably decline to publish exact numbers, and “speaker” itself has no single definition.
For these reasons this article does not quote a figure for any language. Readers who need current numbers should consult the nations’ own language programs and official websites.
The general picture, language by language
What can be said with reasonable confidence is a rough ordering.
Western Apache is generally described as the strongest of the Apachean languages outside Navajo. Published estimates have placed its speakers in the thousands, with the largest concentrations in the communities of eastern and central Arizona. Even so, the usual pattern holds: fluent speakers are concentrated among older adults, and fewer young children acquire it as a first language.
Mescalero and Chiricahua have much smaller communities. Both are associated with the Mescalero Apache Reservation in New Mexico, and Chiricahua descendants also live in Oklahoma. Fluent speakers are generally reported as relatively few and mostly older, and active learning programs matter a great deal.
Jicarilla is spoken in northern New Mexico by a small and aging group of fluent speakers, alongside learners working through the nation’s own programs.
Lipan and Plains Apache are in the most serious position. Reports over recent decades have described very few remaining fluent speakers, and in the case of Lipan, it is often said that the language is close to or at the point of having no first-language speakers. Descendant communities, including the Plains Apache in Oklahoma and Lipan Apache descendants, continue to work with recordings, written records and community knowledge.
What “endangered” means
Endangerment ratings come from outside organizations, and each uses its own scale. A common framework runs from languages that are stable or safe, through those that are vulnerable, definitely endangered, severely endangered and critically endangered, to those with no speakers left. The central question is usually intergenerational transmission: are children still learning the language at home?
By that measure, most Apachean languages sit somewhere between vulnerable and critically endangered, with Lipan and Plains Apache at the more severe end. These labels are useful for planning and for attracting support, but they flatten a lot. A language rated “severely endangered” may have an active revitalization program, a dedicated school and a growing group of learners. The label describes risk, not the vitality of the community’s efforts. For readers interested in the broader field, endangered Apache languages are discussed in the article of that name.
How language loss happened
The decline was not an accident of preference. For many Apache families the shift to English followed deliberate government and church policy. The best known part of that policy is the boarding-school system, in which children were removed from their homes and often punished for speaking their own languages. This is described in general terms in the discussion of Apache boarding school trauma. The effects ran through generations: parents who had been punished for speaking Apache sometimes chose English for their own children, hoping to spare them the same treatment.
Other pressures added to it, including the dominance of English in schools, employment and media, and the movement of families away from their communities for work. The outcome in most communities was a language kept alive by grandparents and great-grandparents but not routinely passed to children.
Why language and culture are tied together
Language carries more than vocabulary. In Apache communities, as in many Indigenous communities, it is bound up with the following.
- Place. Names for mountains, springs and other landmarks often describe the land and carry stories attached to particular spots.
- Relationships. Kinship terms encode how people relate to one another in ways that English words only partly match.
- Stories and teaching. Many narratives and teachings are told in the language and lose some of their shape in translation.
- Ceremony and prayer. Some language use is sacred, and some of it is not shared publicly at all. That is a decision for the communities concerned.
This is why many community members describe language as part of Apache language identity and not only a communication tool. The connection between Apache language and culture is a reason communities invest in revitalization. It also explains why the importance of Apache languages is rarely expressed in terms of numbers alone.
Signs of strength
It would be inaccurate to treat these languages as lost. Apache language programs include classes in tribal schools, adult learning groups, summer language camps and recording projects in which fluent elders work with younger learners. Apache elders teaching remain central, and efforts to get Apache language in schools reflect community priorities set by the nations themselves. Readers can find the details of what individual nations offer in the article on Apache language revitalization and on each nation’s own website.