Hän (alternatively spelled as Haen) (also known as Han-Kutchin) is a Northern Athabaskan language spoken by the Hän Hwëch'in (translated to people who live along the river, sometimes anglicized as Hankutchin). The Hän language is spoken and supported by the Hän nation across localized communities who, since time immemorial, have lived in what is today called the Upper Yukon region; The village of Eagle, Alaska, in the United States; the town of Dawson City, Yukon Territory, in Canada; as well as Fairbanks and Tanacross in Alaska.
Hän is today considered to have two dialects; the Eagle Dialect, named for its use in Eagle Village, and the Moosehide dialect, named for Moosehide, a traditional village of the Trʼondëk Hwëchʼin First Nation in the Yukon.
Hän is in the Northern Athabaskan subgrouping of the Na-Dené language family. It is most closely related to Gwich'in and Upper Tanana.
Revitalization
There are fewer than a dozen first language speakers of Hän, all of whom are elderly though there is a growing second-language speaker community.
The Trʼondëk Hwëchʼin (formerly known as the Dawson First Nation) in the Yukon Territory support the revitalization of Hän, and there are current efforts to revive the language locally. There is an effort to promote traditional skills and finding a balance between the way of the newcomer's which further promotes the development and revitalization of the language.
Since 1991, the Robert Service School in Dawson City has hosted the Hän Language program, and the Trʼondëk Hwëchʼin supports adult language classes and bi-annual cultural gatherings.