Often the Mattole and Wailaki-speaking groups together are called Southern Athapaskans.
They are not to be confused with the Apachean peoples (the Apache and Navajo) - also known as Southern Athabascans - of the Southwestern United States and Northern Mexico, who speak the Southern Athabaskan languages.
Linguists differ on the classification of the Lower Rogue River, Upper Rogue River, and Chetco-Tolowa branches as being either separate languages, or dialects of one macrolanguage, comprising a dialect continuum centered on the Lower Rogue River dialect group with the Chetco-Tolowa and Upper Rogue River groups being peripheral.
[2] The latter view is common among tribal elders and language revitalizationists, who note a high degree of mutual intelligibility and shared cultural identity.
In the absence of a single, unambiguous English name for the dialect group, some learner-speakers refer to it in English as Nuu-wee-ya', an endonym common to all three varieties meaning "our language".