The
Miami-Illinois language is a Native American language formerly spoken in the United States, primarily in
IllinoisIllinois , the 21st state admitted to the United States of America, is the most populous and demographically diverse Midwestern state and the fifth most populous state in the nation...
,
MissouriMissouri is a state in the Midwest region of the United States bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. Missouri is the 18th most populous state with a 2008 estimated population of 5,911,605. It comprises 114 counties and one independent city....
,
IndianaIndiana is a U.S. state, the 19
th admitted to the Union. It is located in the Great Lakes region, and with approximately 6.3 million residents, is ranked 16
th in population and 17
th in population density. Indiana is ranked 38
th in land area, and is the...
, western
OhioOhio is a Midwestern state of the United States. The thirty-fourth largest state by area in the U.S., it is the seventh-most populous with nearly 11.5 million residents...
and adjacent areas along the
Mississippi RiverThe Mississippi River is the second longest river in the United States, with a length of from its source in Lake Itasca in Minnesota to its mouth in the Gulf of Mexico....
by the tribes of the Inoca or Illinois Confederacy, including the
KaskaskiaThe Kaskaskia were one of the several cognate tribes that made up the Illiniwek Confederation. Their first contact with Europeans reportedly occurred near present-day Green Bay, Wisconsin in 1667 at a Jesuit mission station...
,
PeoriaThe Peoria people are a Native American tribe, which today are represented by the federally recognized Peoria Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma. Historically, they were part of the Illinois Confederation.-History:...
,
TamaroaThe Tamaroa were a Native American tribe in the upper Mississippi River valley of North America, and a member of the Illiniwek or Illinois Confederacy of twelve to thirteen tribes....
,
CahokiaCahokia is the site of an ancient indigenous city near Collinsville, Illinois. In the American Bottom floodplain, it is across the Mississippi River from St. Louis, Missouri. The site included 120 man-made earthen mounds over an area of six square miles, although only 80 survive...
, and
Mitchigamea Mitchigamea or Michigamea or Mitchigamie were a tribe in the Illinois Confederation. Not much is known about them and their origin is uncertain. Originally they were said to be from the Lake Michigan, perhaps the Chicago area...
. Miami-Illinois is an
Algic languageThe Algic languages are an indigenous language family of North America. They are all thought to descend from Proto-Algic, a second-order proto language reconstructed using Proto-Algonquian and the attested languages Wiyot and Yurok.The term Algic was used by Edward Sapir, who discovered the...
of the Algonquian family. The name 'Miami-Illinois' is a cover term for a cluster of extremely similar dialects, the primary ones being Miami proper, Peoria, Wea, and, in the older Jesuit records, Illinois.
The
Miami-Illinois language is a Native American language formerly spoken in the United States, primarily in
IllinoisIllinois , the 21st state admitted to the United States of America, is the most populous and demographically diverse Midwestern state and the fifth most populous state in the nation...
,
MissouriMissouri is a state in the Midwest region of the United States bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. Missouri is the 18th most populous state with a 2008 estimated population of 5,911,605. It comprises 114 counties and one independent city....
,
IndianaIndiana is a U.S. state, the 19
th admitted to the Union. It is located in the Great Lakes region, and with approximately 6.3 million residents, is ranked 16
th in population and 17
th in population density. Indiana is ranked 38
th in land area, and is the...
, western
OhioOhio is a Midwestern state of the United States. The thirty-fourth largest state by area in the U.S., it is the seventh-most populous with nearly 11.5 million residents...
and adjacent areas along the
Mississippi RiverThe Mississippi River is the second longest river in the United States, with a length of from its source in Lake Itasca in Minnesota to its mouth in the Gulf of Mexico....
by the tribes of the Inoca or Illinois Confederacy, including the
KaskaskiaThe Kaskaskia were one of the several cognate tribes that made up the Illiniwek Confederation. Their first contact with Europeans reportedly occurred near present-day Green Bay, Wisconsin in 1667 at a Jesuit mission station...
,
PeoriaThe Peoria people are a Native American tribe, which today are represented by the federally recognized Peoria Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma. Historically, they were part of the Illinois Confederation.-History:...
,
TamaroaThe Tamaroa were a Native American tribe in the upper Mississippi River valley of North America, and a member of the Illiniwek or Illinois Confederacy of twelve to thirteen tribes....
,
CahokiaCahokia is the site of an ancient indigenous city near Collinsville, Illinois. In the American Bottom floodplain, it is across the Mississippi River from St. Louis, Missouri. The site included 120 man-made earthen mounds over an area of six square miles, although only 80 survive...
, and
Mitchigamea Mitchigamea or Michigamea or Mitchigamie were a tribe in the Illinois Confederation. Not much is known about them and their origin is uncertain. Originally they were said to be from the Lake Michigan, perhaps the Chicago area...
. Miami-Illinois is an
Algic languageThe Algic languages are an indigenous language family of North America. They are all thought to descend from Proto-Algic, a second-order proto language reconstructed using Proto-Algonquian and the attested languages Wiyot and Yurok.The term Algic was used by Edward Sapir, who discovered the...
of the Algonquian family. The name 'Miami-Illinois' is a cover term for a cluster of extremely similar dialects, the primary ones being Miami proper, Peoria, Wea, and, in the older Jesuit records, Illinois. About half of its speakers were displaced from their territories, eventually settling in northeastern Oklahoma as the Miami Nation and the
Peoria TribeThe Peoria people are a Native American tribe, which today are represented by the federally recognized Peoria Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma. Historically, they were part of the Illinois Confederation.-History:...
; the remainder of the Miami stayed behind in northern
IndianaIndiana is a U.S. state, the 19
th admitted to the Union. It is located in the Great Lakes region, and with approximately 6.3 million residents, is ranked 16
th in population and 17
th in population density. Indiana is ranked 38
th in land area, and is the...
. The language was documented in written materials for over 200 years; the largest contribution being a dictionary compiled by Jaques Gravier, a Jesuit missionary who lived among the Kaskaskia tribe in the early 1700s. The document was a Kaskaskia to French dictionary, nearly 600 pages and 20,000 entries in length. The manuscript was edited and published by Carl Masthay in 2002. The closest relatives of the Miami-Illinois are Sauk,
Meskwaki-History:According to archeologists, about ten thousand years ago, peoples from the Eurasian landmass migrated to modern-day North America via the Bering Strait land bridge. Approximately seven thosand years ago, groups of these earlier migrants reached and settled in what is now know as Ontario,...
,
KickapooThe Kickapoos are one of the Algonquian-speaking Native American tribes. According to the Anishinaabeg, the name "Kickapoo" means "Stands Here and there". It referred to the tribe's migratory patterns. The name can also mean "wanderer"...
, Ojibwe, and
PotawatomiThe Potawatomi are a Native American people of the upper Mississippi River region. They traditionally speak the Potawatomi language, a member of the Algonquian family...
.
David Costa published
The Miami-Illinois Language in 1994 as his PhD. dissertation and as a book in 2003. The book reconstructs the Miami-Illinois language and all its grammatical features. This was a huge addition to a revitalization effort spearheaded by the
Miami Tribe of OklahomaThe Miami Tribe of Oklahoma is a federally recognized Native American tribe of Miami Indians. An unrecognized band of Miami Indians live in Indiana today.-History:...
, ongoing since the mid 1990s. This project, the Myaamia Project, is a joint venture between the tribe and
Miami UniversityMiami University is a coeducational public university located in the college town of Oxford, Ohio. The university was founded in 1809 and is the 10th oldest public university in the United States and second oldest in the U.S. state of Ohio. Miami is cited as one of the eight original Public...
. The project members have been involved in the translation of missionary documents and publication of Miami culture and language materials. These include a children's book of Miami language and culture, an audio CD set with vocabulary, phrases, conversation, and the Miami origin story and a companion text, and a compilation of traditional stories from the Miami and Peoria tribes recorded in the early 1900s when the language's last speakers were alive.
The language is currently considered
"extinct"An extinct language is a language which no longer has any speakers. Extinct languages may be contrasted with dead languages: no longer spoken as a main language.-Language loss:...
because there are no fluent native speakers of the language, but there has been a strong
language reclamationLanguage revitalization, language revival or reversing language shift is the attempt by interested parties, including individuals, cultural or community groups, governments, or political authorities, to reverse the decline of a language. If the decline is severe, the language may be endangered,...
program since the mid 1990s of the Miami dialect. Many Miami tribal members question the notion of whether "extinct" was the appropriate metaphor and instead use the term "sleeping" since the language was never irretrievably lost (Leonard, 2008).
External links