Reconstruction:Proto-Athabaskan/denʸʔ

This Proto-Athabaskan entry contains reconstructed terms and roots. As such, the term(s) in this entry are not directly attested, but are hypothesized to have existed based on comparative evidence.

Proto-Athabaskan

Alternative reconstructions

  • *dἀw̃ʔ (Krauss 1979)
  • *dʊmʔ (Kari 2024)

Etymology

According to Vajda (2022), from earlier Proto-Na-Dene *dawn ~ down, though there are no cognates in Eyak or Tlingit. Further, he argues the term is cognate with a Proto-Yeniseian he reconstructs as *dewn-, which appears in the names of several kinds of insects.

Noun

*denʸʔ

  1. fly (insect in the order Diptera)

Descendants

  • Northern Athabaskan:
    • Dogrib: -diì (appears in the names of several types of flies)
    • Lower Tanana: den', dwn'
    • Tanacross: dę̌y'
  • Southern Athabaskan:

References

  • Young, Robert; Morgan, William; Midgette, Sally (1992), Analytical lexicon of Navajo, Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, →ISBN, page 148
  • Sharon Hargus; Keren Rice (2005), Athabaskan Prosody, Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, →ISBN, page 128
  • Fortescue, Michael; Vajda, Edward (2022), Mid-Holocene Language Connections between Asia and North America (Brill's Studies in the Indigenous Languages of the Americas; 17)‎[1], Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN, page 328
  • Kari, James et al. (2024), Kari, James, editor, Lower Tanana Dene Dictionary, Fairbanks, Alaska: Alaska Native Language Center, →ISBN, page 174
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