Deg Xitʼan


Deg Hitʼan is a group of Athabaskan peoples in Alaska. Their native language is called Deg Xinag. They reside in Alaska along the Anvik River in Anvik, along the Innoko River in Shageluk, and at Holy Cross along the lower Yukon River.
The Deg Hitʼan are members of the federally recognized Alaska Native tribes of Anvik Village, Shageluk Native Village, and Holy Cross Village. The Iditarod Trail's antecedents were the native trails of the Dena'ina and Deg Hitʼan Athabaskan Indians and the Inupiaq Eskimos.
Their neighbors are other Athabaskan-speaking and Yupik Eskimo peoples: Yup'ik, Holikachuk, Upper Kuskokwim, and Dena'ina.

Name

The autonyms used by this group of Athabaskan people are: Deg Xitʼan and Deg Xinag. Sometimes the Deg Xitʼan or Deg Hitʼan is used for the language in English. Deg Hitʼan rather than Deg Xitʼan is a somewhat unfortunate spelling choice. Xitʼan is the orthographic representation of /χətʼan/ "people of ", a nominalized verb form. There is no contrast between /χ/ and /h/ in the verb prefixes of Deg Xinag, and acoustic evidence indicates that the normative pronunciation in that context is rather than .
The most common older name is Ingalik and its derivatives are offensive to the Deg Hitʼan. In the old literature, the name Anvik-Shageluk Ingalik is used for Deg Hitʼan, and the name McGrath Ingalik is used for Upper Kuskokwim people.