Definitions for "Athapaskan"
A forest-dwelling culture of hunters and trappers, originally from the American North West (Alaska & Canada). A nomadic people, they filtered down into the deserts and southern prairies of North America many centuries ago. Athapaskans were the ancestors of the Navajos and Apaches.
a member of any of the North American Indian groups speaking an Athapaskan language and living in the subarctic regions of western Canada and central Alaska
a group of Amerindian languages (the name coined by an American anthropologist, Edward Sapir)