The Plains Apache language (or Kiowa Apache) is a Southern Athabaskan language

Southern Athabaskan languages

Southern Athabaskan is a subfamily of Athabaskan languages spoken primarily in the North American Southwest with two outliers in Oklahoma and Texas...

 spoken by the Plains Apache

Plains Apache

The Plains Apache are a Southern Athabaskan group that traditionally live on the Southern Plains of North America and today are centered in Southwestern Oklahoma...

 peoples living primarily in central Oklahoma

Oklahoma

Oklahoma is a state located in the South Central region of the United States of America. With an estimated 3,751,351 residents as of the 2010 census and a land area of 68,667 square miles , Oklahoma is the 28th most populous and 20th-largest state...

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Plains Apache is most closely related to other Southern Athabaskan languages like Navajo

Navajo language

Navajo or Navaho is an Athabaskan language spoken in the southwestern United States. It is geographically and linguistically one of the Southern Athabaskan languages .Navajo has more speakers than any other Native American language north of the...

, Chiricahua Apache

Chiricahua

Chiricahua are a group of Apache Native Americans who live in the Southwest United States. At the time of European encounter, they were living in 15 million acres of territory in southwestern New Mexico and southeastern Arizona in the United States, and in northern Sonora and Chihuahua in Mexico...

, Mescalero Apache

Mescalero

Mescalero is an Apache tribe of Southern Athabaskan Native Americans. The tribe is federally recognized as the Mescalero Apache Tribe of the Mescalero Apache Reservation in southcentral New Mexico...

, Lipan Apache, Western Apache

Western Apache language

The Western Apache language is a Southern Athabaskan language spoken by over 12,000 of the Western Apache peoples living primarily in east central Arizona...

, and Jicarilla Apache

Jicarilla Apache

Jicarilla Apache refers to the members of the Jicarilla Apache Nation currently living in New Mexico and speaking a Southern Athabaskan language...

. Plains Apache is the most divergent member of the subfamily. These speakers probably left their northern homeland later than the other Southern Athabaskan peoples. The language is extremely endangered

Endangered language

An endangered language is a language that is at risk of falling out of use. If it loses all its native speakers, it becomes a dead language. If eventually no one speaks the language at all it becomes an "extinct language"....

with perhaps only one native speaking elder.