The Western Apache language is a Southern Athabaskan language spoken by over 14,000 of the Western Apaches living primarily in east central Arizona. Goodwin (1938) claims that Western Apache can be divided into five dialect groupings:
In 2011, the San Carlos Apache Tribe’s Language Preservation Program, located in Peridot, Arizona, began its outreach to the "14,000 tribal members residing within the districts of Bylas, Gilson Wash, Peridot and Seven Mile Wash,"[3] only 20% of whom still speak the language fluently.[4]
^as reported by Willem de Reuse in Golla, Victor. 2007. North America. In Encyclopedia of the world's endangered languages, ed. Christopher Moseley (pp. 1–95). Routledge: London.
^Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Western Apache". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.