Kahtnuht'ana Qenaga -
The Kenai Peoples' Language

Dena’ina is one of many Athabascan dialects, the language traditionally spoken by a wide range of indigenous peoples in North America. Dena’ina is one of the most complex of the Athabascan languages, containing both coastal and marine terminology as well as over 400 Russian loan words. This unique language was spoken in a region that stretches from the southern section of the Alaska Range to the Cook Inlet Basin—an area roughly the size of Ohio.

The Dena’ina territory encompasses heterogeneous geological and climatic regions—diversity that has contributed to differences in dialect. This site contains materials from the multiple dialects within our region, and we have attempted to identify the source dialect when possible.