Languages versus dialects
The question of what counts as a dialect and what counts as a separate language is partly linguistic and partly social. Linguists often use mutual intelligibility as a rough guide, meaning whether speakers can understand one another without learning the other’s speech. But that line is blurry, and political and cultural identity also shape how communities describe their speech. Apache nations may call their speech a language, a dialect or simply by a name in their own tongue, and all of those choices deserve respect.
With that in mind, the usual scholarly description is that the Apache peoples speak a group of closely related languages, collectively called Apachean, with some of them having distinct dialects.
Where Apachean fits
Apachean belongs to the Southern Athabaskan branch of the Athabaskan (also spelled Athabascan) language family. The wider family includes languages spoken across Alaska and northwestern Canada, and a few on the Pacific Coast. The scholarly view is that Apache and Navajo ancestors spoke a northern Athabaskan language and moved to the Southwest at a time that is debated. The question of when and how is covered in the articles on Apachean migration and the Apachean timeline, and oral traditions of the nations offer their own accounts. This article is concerned only with how the languages relate to one another today.
The main Apachean languages
The commonly cited divisions are these:
- Western Apache. The speech of the White Mountain, San Carlos, Cibecue and Tonto groups in Arizona. Scholars often distinguish several dialects, shaped by local group and geography. A speaker from one community may notice differences in words and pronunciation in another, while still being understood.
- Chiricahua and Mescalero. Often treated as two closely related varieties, which some linguists group as a single language, sometimes called Chiricahua-Mescalero. The Mescalero in New Mexico and the descendants of the Chiricahua, including the Fort Sill Apache in Oklahoma, are the communities associated with it.
- Jicarilla. The speech of the Jicarilla Apache in northern New Mexico, which has some features that tie it to both Plains and Pueblo-adjacent neighbors in history, though it remains clearly Apachean.
- Lipan. Historically spoken in Texas and northern Mexico, and generally regarded as closest to Jicarilla and Chiricahua-Mescalero, although the available documentation is limited.
- Plains Apache. Spoken in Oklahoma by the Apache Tribe of Oklahoma, historically called Kiowa Apache by outsiders. It is regarded as having diverged somewhat from the other Apachean languages through long separation on the Plains.
In broad terms, descriptions often group the Apachean languages geographically into western and eastern branches, with Western Apache on one side and the Eastern group including Jicarilla, Lipan, Mescalero-Chiricahua and Plains Apache on the other. Specialists disagree on some details of these groupings, and readers should treat the picture as a general guide.
How different are they?
The differences are real but not total. Related words and sentence patterns appear throughout, and speakers who know one variety often recognize pieces of another. Mutual understanding is typically easier between neighboring or closely related varieties than between those at the far ends of the family, and it varies from person to person. Because these are generalizations, anyone wanting a precise statement about intelligibility between two particular varieties should rely on linguistic studies and on speakers’ own statements.
Differences include the sounds, words borrowed from Spanish or English, and the meaning of some terms. A name for a plant or place may also be local, tied to a specific landscape, which links dialect to the Apache place names found across the Southwest.
Relationship to Navajo
Navajo (Diné bizaad) is the closest relative and is often grouped with Apachean in the Southern Athabaskan branch. The Navajo and the Apache peoples were historically neighbors and had contact with each other, and their languages share a recognizable common ancestry. Even so, the Navajo Nation is a separate nation with its own government and language programs. The relationship is discussed further in the pieces on Apache and Navajo kinship and on the Navajo as a separate nation. It is accurate to say Navajo and Western Apache share many features, but it would be wrong to treat them as the same language or to assume speakers understand one another fully.
Why dialects matter for language work
For revival efforts, dialect differences have practical consequences. A teacher in one community may find that a published dictionary, based on another variety, uses words or sounds that the local elders do not. A spelling system devised for one dialect may not suit another. Communities therefore often prefer to base materials on their own local speech. This is part of why the work described in the article on Apache language programs is led by the nations individually, not by a single central effort.
It also affects how old recordings are used. Early records of a given variety, as discussed in the piece on early Apache language documentation, can help a community recover the speech of its own ancestors.
A note on names
Many Apache people call themselves by names in their own languages, such as Ndé or similar forms depending on the language, and the labels used here are mostly names used by scholars or by outsiders. Readers who want to use a nation’s own language names should consult that nation directly.