The Cosna River (

Lower Tanana Lower Tanana (also Tanana and/or Middle Tanana) is an endangered language spoken in Interior Alaska in the lower Tanana River villages of Minto and Nenana. Of about 380 Tanana people in the two villages, about 30 still speak the language. As of ...

: ''K'osno'') is a tributary of the

Tanana River The Tanana River (Lower Tanana: Tth'eetoo', Upper Tanana: ''Tth’iitu’ Niign'') is a tributary of the Yukon River in the U.S. state of Alaska. According to linguist and anthropologist William Bright, the name is from the Koyukon (Athabaskan) ...

in the central part of the U.S. state of

Alaska Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S., ...

. It flows northward from the Bitzshtini Mountains into the Tanana west (downstream) of Manley Hot Springs. In 1899, Lieutenant J. S. Herron attributed the name to the Tanana peoples living in the area. However, a century later linguist William Bright, citing the ''Koyukon Athabascan Dictionary'', attributed the name to the

Koyukon The Koyukon (russian: Коюконы) are an Alaska Native Athabascan people of the Athabascan-speaking ethnolinguistic group. Their traditional territory is along the Koyukuk and Yukon rivers where they subsisted for thousands of years by ...

words ''kk' os'',

schist Schist ( ) is a medium-grained metamorphic rock showing pronounced schistosity. This means that the rock is composed of mineral grains easily seen with a low-power hand lens, oriented in such a way that the rock is easily split into thin flakes o ...

rock, combined with ''no, river.

References

Rivers of Alaska Rivers of Yukon–Koyukuk Census Area, Alaska Rivers of Unorganized Borough, Alaska Tanana Athabaskans {{Alaska-river-stub

See also

References