Lower Tanana
Menhti Kenaga
Native to	United States
Region	Alaska (middleYukon River,Koyukuk River)
Ethnicity	400Tanana (2007)[1]
Native speakers	1 (2020)[1]
Language family	Dené–Yeniseian? Na-Dené Athabaskan Northern Athabaskan Lower Tanana
Writing system	Latin (Northern Athabaskan alphabet)
Official status
Official language in	Alaska[2]
Language codes
ISO 639-3	taa
Glottolog	lowe1425
ELP	(Lower) Tanana

Lower Tanana (alsoTanana and/orMiddle Tanana) is anendangered language spoken in InteriorAlaska in the lowerTanana River villages ofMinto andNenana. Of about 380 Tanana people in the two villages, about 30 still speak the language. As of 2010, "Speakers who grew up with Lower Tanana as their first language can be found only in the 250-person village of Minto."^[3] It is one of the large family ofAthabaskan languages, also known asDené.

TheAthabaskan (or Dené) bands who formerly occupied a territory between theSalcha and theGoodpaster rivers spoke a distinct language that linguists term theMiddle Tanana language.

• Toklat area dialect (Tutlʼot)
• Minto Flats-Nenana River dialect: Minto (Menhti) and Nenana (Nina Noʼ)
• Chena River dialect: Chena Village (Chʼenoʼ)
• Salcha River dialect: Salcha (Sol Chaget)

Vowel sounds in Tanana are/aæɪ~iʊ~uə/.

• dena "man"
• trʼaxa "woman"
• setseya "my grandfather"
• setsu "my grandmother"
• xwtʼana "clan"
• ddheł "mountain"
• tu "black bear"
• tsonee "brown bear"
• bedzeyh "caribou"
• łiga "dog"
• beligaʼ "his/her dog"
• kʼwyʼ "willow"
• katreth "moccasin"
• trʼiyh "canoe"
• yoyekoyh "Northern Lights"
• tena "trail"
• khwnʼa "river"
• t’eede gaay "girl" (Middle Tanana)

In a 2008–2009 project, linguistSiri Tuttle of theUniversity of Alaska's Native Language Center "worked with elders to translate and document song lyrics, some on file at the language center and some recorded during the project."^[4]

"The Minto dialect of Tanana ... allows speakers to occasionally change the number of syllables in longer words."^{[4][clarification needed]}

• Charlie, Teddy (1992).Ode Setl'oghwnh Da': Long After I Am Gone. Fairbanks: Alaska Native Language Center.ISBN 1-55500-045-2.
• Kari, James; Charlie, Isabel; John, Peter; Alexander, Evelyn (1991),Lower Tanana Athabaskan Listening and Writing Exercises, Fairbanks: Alaska Native Language Center
• Tuttle, Siri (1998).Metrical and Tonal Structures in Tanana Athabaskan (Ph.D. thesis). University of Washington.
• Tuttle, Siri (2003),Archival Phonetics: Tone and Stress in Tanana Athabaskan, University of Alaska Fairbanks

• Lower Tanana basic lexicon at the Global Lexicostatistical Database

• Tanana Athabaskans
• Northern Athabaskan languages
• Indigenous languages of Alaska
• Indigenous languages of the North American Subarctic
• Endangered Dené–Yeniseian languages
• Native American language revitalization
• Official languages of Alaska

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Use mdy dates from July 2021
• ISO language articles citing sources other than Ethnologue
• Articles containing Lower Tanana-language text
• Pages with plain IPA
• Wikipedia articles needing clarification from July 2025