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The
Iroquoian languages are a First Nation and
Native AmericanNative Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
language familyA language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ancestor, called the proto-language of that family. The term 'family' comes from the tree model of language origination in historical linguistics, which makes use of a metaphor comparing languages to people in a...
.
Family division
- Southern Iroquoian
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- Cherokee
Cherokee is an Iroquoian language spoken by the Cherokee people which uses a unique syllabary writing system. It is the only Southern Iroquoian language that remains spoken. Cherokee is a polysynthetic language.-North American etymology:...
- Northern Iroquoian
- Lakes Iroquoian
The Iroquois , also known as the Haudenosaunee or the "People of the Longhouse", are an association of several tribes of indigenous people of North America...
- Five Nations
The Iroquois , also known as the Haudenosaunee or the "People of the Longhouse", are an association of several tribes of indigenous people of North America...
and SusquehannockThe Susquehannock people were Iroquoian-speaking Native Americans who lived in areas adjacent to the Susquehanna River and its tributaries from the southern part of what is now New York, through Pennsylvania, to the mouth of the Susquehanna in Maryland at the north end of the Chesapeake Bay...
- Seneca–Onondaga
- Seneca–Cayuga
- Seneca
Seneca is the language of the Seneca people, one of the Six Nations of the Iroquois League. About 10,000 Seneca live in the United States and Canada, primarily on reservations in western New York, with others living in Oklahoma and near Brantford, Ontario.-Phonology:Seneca words are written with...
- Cayuga
Cayuga is a Northern Iroquoian language of the Iroquois Proper subfamily, and is spoken on Six Nations of the Grand River First Nation, Ontario, by around 100 Cayuga people.-Dialects:...
- Onondaga
- Onondaga
Onondaga Nation Language is the language of the Onondaga First Nation, one of the original five constituent tribes of the League of the Iroquois ....
- Mohawk–Oneida
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- Oneida
Oneida is an Iroquoian language spoken primarily by the Oneida people in the U.S. states of New York and Wisconsin, and the Canadian province of Ontario. There are an estimated 160 native speakers left. Language revitalization efforts are in progress...
- Mohawk
Mohawk is an Iroquoian language spoken by around 2,000 people of the Mohawk nation in the United States and Canada . Mohawk has the largest number of speakers of the Northern Iroquoian languages; today it is the only one with greater than a thousand remaining...
- Susquehannock
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- Susquehannock
Susquehannock is an extinct language that once was spoken by the Native American Susquehannocks. It is a part of the Iroquoian language family....
(extinct)
- Huronian
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- Wyandot
Wyandot is the Iroquoian language traditionally spoken by the people known variously as Wyandot, Wyandotte, Wendat, or Huron. It was last spoken primarily in Oklahoma and Quebec...
(Huron–PetunThe Petún , or Tionontati in their language, were an Iroquoian-speaking First Nations people closely related to the Wendat Confederacy. Their homeland was located along the southwest edge of Georgian Bay, in the area immediately to the west of the Huron territory in Southern Ontario of...
) (extinct)
- Neutral
The Neutrals, also known as the Attawandaron, were an Iroquoian nation of North American native people who lived near the shores of Lake Ontario and Lake Erie.-Territory:...
(extinct)
- Erie (extinct)
- Tuscarora–Nottoway
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- Tuscarora
Tuscarora, sometimes called Ska:rù:rę, is an Iroquoian language of the Tuscarora people, spoken in southern Ontario, Canada, and northwestern New York around Niagara Falls, in the United States. The historic homeland of the Tuscarora was in eastern North Carolina, in and around the Goldsboro,...
(seriously endangered)
- Nottoway (extinct)
- Unclear
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- Laurentian
Laurentian, or St. Lawrence Iroquoian, was an Iroquoian language spoken until the late 16th century along the shores of the Saint Lawrence River in present-day Quebec and Ontario, Canada. It is believed to have disappeared with the extinction of the St...
(extinct)
Scholars are finding that what has been called the
LaurentianLaurentian, or St. Lawrence Iroquoian, was an Iroquoian language spoken until the late 16th century along the shores of the Saint Lawrence River in present-day Quebec and Ontario, Canada. It is believed to have disappeared with the extinction of the St...
language appears to be more than one dialect or language.
In 1649 the tribes constituting the
Huron and
Petun confederations were displaced by war parties from Five Nations villages (Mithun 1985). Many of the survivors went on to form the Wyandot tribe. Ethnographic and linguistic field work with the Wyandot (Barbeau 1960) yielded enough documentation to be able to make some characterizations of the Huron and Petun languages.
The languages of the tribes that constituted the
NeutralThe Neutrals, also known as the Attawandaron, were an Iroquoian nation of North American native people who lived near the shores of Lake Ontario and Lake Erie.-Territory:...
and the
ErieThe Erie were an Native American people historically living on the south shore of Lake Erie. An Iroquoian group, they lived in what is now western New York, northwestern Pennsylvania, and northern Ohio...
confederations were very poorly documented. These groups were called
Atiwandaronk meaning 'they who understand the language' by the Huron, and thus are historically grouped with them.
The group known as the
MeherrinThe Meherrin Nation is one of eight state-recognized Nations of Native Americans in North Carolina. They reside in rural northeastern North Carolina, near the river of the same name on the Virginia-North Carolina border. They received formal state recognition in 1986. The Meherrin have an...
were neighbors to the Tuscarora and the Nottoway (Binford 1967) and may have spoken an Iroquoian language. There is not enough data to determine this with certainty.
External relations
Attempts to link the Iroquoian,
SiouanThe Western Siouan languages, also called Siouan proper or simply Siouan, are a Native American language family of North America, and the second largest indigenous language family in North America, after Algonquian...
, and
CaddoanThe Caddoan languages are a family of Native American languages. They are spoken by Native Americans in parts of the Great Plains of the central United States, from North Dakota south to Oklahoma.-Family division:...
languages in a
Macro-SiouanThe Macro-Siouan languages are a proposed language family that would include the Siouan, Iroquoian, and Caddoan families. Most linguists remain unconvinced that these languages share a genetic relationship, and the existence of a Macro-Siouan language family remains a subject of debate.In the 19th...
family are suggestive but remain unproven (Mithun 1999:305).
Further reading
- Driver, Harold E. 1969. Indians of North America. 2nd edition. University of Chicago Press.
- Ruttenber, Edward Manning. 1992 [1872]. History of the Indian tribes of Hudson's River. Hope Farm Press.
- Snow, Dean R. 1994. The Iroquois. Blackwell Publishers. Peoples of America.
- Snow, Dean R.; Gehring, Charles T; Starna, William A. 1996. In Mohawk country: early narratives about a native people. Syracuse University Press. An anthology of primary sources from 1634-1810.