One way of saying Dene?

More and more often I hear suggestions to replace the word Athabascan with the indigenous term Dene. There's no doubt that Athabascan is an foreign term applied arbitrarily by outsiders. In fact, the first application of the term is well documented. The name was first applied by Albert Gallatin, a businessman and politician who had a particular interest in the classifications of Native American languages. In 1826 Gallatin concluded that all the "inland tribes" of the northwestern part of North America belonged to one family and spoke related languages. He acknowledged that the name for these related languages was entirely his own individual preference, writing:

"I have designated them by the arbitrary denomination of Athabascas, which derived from the original name of the lake,"
--Albert Gallatin (quoted in Krauss, 1987)

The origin of the term itself in the Cree language is described in a short article by Michael Krauss. This article also traces the history of the various English spellings of the word.

The word Dene seems a natural alternative for Athabascan, since this word or something similar is used to refer to "person" in many Athabascan languages across Canada. Even distant Navajo uses the word Diné, with similar pronunciation though slightly different spelling. However, moving west to Alaska we find some differences.

Language	'person'
Ahtna	Koht'aene
Dena'ina	Dena
Deg Xinag	Dena
Holikachuk	Dina
Upper Kuskokwim	Dina
Koyukon	Dinaa
Lower Tanana	Dena / Kokht'ana
Tanacross	Dendeh
Upper Tanana	Dineh
Gwich'in	Dinjii
Han	Jëjee

Most of these words are pretty similar to Dene. Some are even pronounced nearly the same even though they may be spelled differently. Others, such as the Han term Jëjee, seem quite different (though clearly related). The Ahtna term is entirely different, literally referring to owner of a area or region. Ahtna does have a similar word Denae, but this has come to refer specifically to a wealthy man.

So where does this leave us? While Dene may not be the exact word for 'person' in every Alaska Athabascan language, it comes pretty close in most cases. And it is certainly closer than Athabascan. At least it comes from the same language family. The annual conference devoted to these languages has variously been referred to as Dene or Athabascan, and the conference website even uses the hybrid term Dene/Athabascan. We may not be far from abandoning the term Athabascan in favor of Dene.