Editing Tlingit language (section)

==History==
The history of Tlingit is poorly known, mostly because there is no written record until the first contact with Europeans around the 1790s.  Documentation was sparse and irregular until the early 20th century. The language appears to have spread northward from the [[Ketchikan, Alaska|Ketchikan]]–[[Saxman, Alaska|Saxman]] area towards the [[Chilkat Peninsula|Chilkat]] region since certain conservative features are reduced gradually from south to north. The shared features between the [[Eyak language]], found around the [[Copper River (Alaska)|Copper River]] delta, and [[Tongass Tlingit]], near the [[Portland Canal]], are all the more striking for the distances that separate them, both geographic and linguistic.