A word meaning “the people”
Most Apache nations have a name for themselves that is usually translated “the people”. In English writing it appears as Ndee, Nde, Ndé, Inde, Indeh and in other spellings. The Navajo use the related form Diné, and across the wider Athabaskan family, related words appear in languages as far north as Canada and Alaska, where forms such as Dene are used. The resemblance is one of the clearest everyday signs that these languages share a common ancestor.
“Apache” is the outside name that came into general use, and its own origin is debated. Self-names matter because they show how the people refer to themselves, and because a single English word has long hidden a variety of nations. The outside term has its own debated history, bound up with the meaning of the name Apache, so this piece concentrates on the names Apache people use.
Why the spelling varies
The variation in spelling is mostly a matter of writing, not of different words.
Different sounds in different languages. The Apache languages are related but not identical. A word that begins with one consonant in one language can begin with a related consonant in another, and vowels differ in length and quality. These differences are real, so some variation in the spelling reflects variation in speech.
Different spelling systems. Communities and scholars have used different alphabets, and a symbol that stands for one sound in one system may stand for another elsewhere. Marks that show tone, nasalization or a glottal stop are often left out in everyday English writing.
Older records. Early writers spelled what they heard using English or Spanish habits. The spelling “Inde” with a capital I has been popular since the twentieth century, and older ethnographic sources record forms such as Tinde and Dineh. These are attempts to represent a spoken name in an alphabet that did not match its sounds.
None of this means one spelling is wrong. The best practice is to use the spelling that a nation or community itself uses in its official materials, and to remember that a nation may use several.
Names by nation
The picture varies, and an honest summary has to be general.
Chiricahua. Spellings such as Ndé and Inde are widely used in writing about the Chiricahua. A well-known twentieth-century book of Apache recollections used the spelling “Indeh” in its title, which helped to popularize that form in English.
Mescalero. The Mescalero Apache Tribe is the official English name. Self-names with the same core word are used within the community and in its language programs.
Western Apache. Western Apache people use Ndee in English-language materials, and the term is often found in the names of language and cultural programs. The Western Apache include several groups, such as the White Mountain Apache and San Carlos Apache, and local group names can matter more to people than the broad term.
Jicarilla and Lipan. These nations also use self-names built on the same word for “the people”. Spellings vary more in older sources, and the details are best taken from the nations themselves.
Plains Apache and Kiowa Apache. Plains Apache is the name now generally preferred. The older Kiowa Apache name was an outside label, reflecting the long association with the Kiowa. The group has its own name for itself, which should be checked against the tribe’s own materials rather than quoted from older sources.
Navajo. The Navajo call themselves Diné, and the Navajo Nation uses Diné in its own materials, including the name of the land, Diné Bikéyah. “Navajo” is itself an outside name, widely thought to come through Spanish from a Tewa word, though sources differ.
Names inside the nations
A self-name for the whole people is not the only kind of name. Apache societies recognize smaller units, and people may identify first by a local group, a band, a clan or a community. Western Apache clans and local groups are one example. The names for these groups usually refer to places or features of the land, and they are different from the larger “people” name. For this reason, the single word “Apache” is poorly suited to describing identity, and the Apache self-names often work more like an inclusive term than a tribal label.
Names for individuals are also a matter of custom. Many historical people are known to outsiders by Spanish or English names, or by nicknames given by others, while their names in Apache languages differ. Care is needed when reading older accounts, and this site uses the names that are generally accepted in the historical record.
Related names in the wider family
The same core word shows up across the Athabaskan family, and the pattern is helpful in showing relationships between languages without making claims about when groups separated.
- In Navajo, Diné.
- In various Apache languages, forms related to Ndee or Nde.
- In languages of northern Canada, forms such as Dene or Dene Suline, and in the Northwest Territories, the Dene Nation is a political organization.
- In some other Athabaskan languages, related words are used with different meanings, such as “person” or “people”, because languages change over time.
Not every Athabaskan language has the same word, and it would be a mistake to treat the self-name as a uniform feature of all of them.
Using the names today
For writers, the following approach is reasonable.
- Use the most specific name that applies, such as White Mountain Apache or Mescalero Apache Tribe.
- Use “Apache peoples” or “Apache nations” for the group of related nations, not “the Apache” as though they were one tribe.
- Use the spellings found in each nation’s official materials.
- Avoid inventing translations for words you cannot verify, and be skeptical of lists of “Apache words” on websites that do not name a source.
The self-names are living words in living languages. Their spelling will continue to vary, but the idea behind them, a people naming themselves as people, is consistent across the languages that use them.