Is there a relationship between the Navajo Indians and the Apache Indians?
Yes!
Most people would say that Navajo (Dine') and the different
Apache (Inde'- "inday") groups are all cousin languages and
cultures of a sort. I would say they are about as far apart as
perhaps Spanish and Italian. In other words, many basic words are
the same or similar but others are not. Words like rock (tse),
water (to'), I (shi) are very close. Depending on how you want to
divide them up they are about seven language groups in the Southern
Athabascan language family, Navajo and six Apache languages; Plains
Apache, Western Apache, Mescalero, Chiricahua, Jicarilla and
Lipan.
They all have the same 33 consonants, 4 vowels, the vowels can
be short or long (not how we mean in English but rather said for a
longer/shorter time), can be nasalized or not, and are tonal with
high, low , rising and falling.
The grammar is similar too. Called :" fusional, polysynthetic,
nominative-accusative head-marking languages". The word order is
Subject Object Verb. Words are modified primarily by prefixes.
Verbs are most important. The grammar is very complex compared to
English.
They are all related in language, but not really in culture, to
the rest of the Athabascan languages which are in Canada and
Alaska. For example the vowel in the word for "cloud" k(k'os)
changes from "o" to "a"
For traditional Navajo and Apache they have, of course,
different creation stories. Culturally, the Navajo are perhaps the
most different in historic times, They grew corn in bigger
permanent fields and lived in Hogans. After they got sheep and
horses, sheep and weaving became very important to them too. Most
of the Apache groups lived in less permanent houses and depended on
hunting more and corn growing less. But there were large
differences in some groups for example the Plains Apache and the
Lipan lived near and almost just like the Kiowa, a plains Indian
culture, hunting buffalo. Others were mainly desert hunter
gatherers.