ENDANGERED Native American Languages

Variety

A common misconception is that there was one Native American language. In reality, there were perhaps a thousand languages spoken in the Americas before the arrival of Europeans - about 250 in the present territory of the United States alone. In addition, these languages showed tremendous variety between one another. A trio of individuals from three areas a hundred miles apart might very likely have been completely unable to communicate by speech. There was, however, a sign language used in some areas to allow communication between those of different tribes. This is described in detail in William Clark's book, "The Indian Sign Language".

Complexity

The spoken languages were neither primitive nor simple, and many had grammars as complex as those of Russian and Latin. However, with the exception of an ideographic system used by the Mayans and their neighbors near the Yucatan peninsula, none of the native languages of America had a writing system until the arrival of Europeans.

Language Families

As is the case with the Eastern Hemisphere, linguists have found similarities between some languages of the Americas, and differences between others, and have grouped them into families. A family is a collection of languages with a common origin and which separated into different dialects and languages over the course of time. The process of language speciation can be seen to a small extent in the way that English has come to be acquire slight differences in the different places it is spoken. A more advanced demonstration of this is the case of the Romance languages (Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian and a few others) which all descended from Latin. The Romance languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family, the dominant language family in the world today. English is a member of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European family. Russian is a member of the Slavic branch of the Indo-European family. The Romance, Germanic and Slavic branches alone constitute the overwhelming majority of the languages spoken in Europe, while other Indo-European branches have their homes in Iran and India. Indo-European languages, in particular English, Spanish, Portuguese and French, have become the dominant language in many parts of the world in the last 500 years, including almost all of North and South America, and Australia. Only one other language family, the Ural-Altaic family, contains the national language of any country in Europe. Hungarian, Finnish and Estonian are all Ural-Altaic, as is Turkish, spoken on a small corner of the continent. The Basque language of Spain and France has no clear relatives anywhere in the world.
North America thus had much more linguistic variety than Europe at the time of Columbus. The present territory of the continental United States was home to several prevalent language families, in contrast to the two of Europe.

Indigenous Language Families of North America

nine important language families which existed in the present-day territory of the United States before they were largely displaced by English over the last few centuries. These included Algic (Algonquin), Iroquoian, Muskogean, Siouan, Athabaskan, Uto-Aztecan, Salishan and Eskimo-Aleut. In addition, there were many other smaller families, such as Sahaptian, Miwok-Costanoan, Kiowa-Tanoan and Caddoan. Some languages, such as Zuni, have no known relationship with any other language, and are known as isolates.
The maps on this page show those language families which had significant presence in the territory of the continental United States, although nearly all of them extended to either Canada or Mexico. There were many additional language families represented elsewhere in the Americas, and South America probably represented even more diversity than North America. The Mayan language family of Mexico and nearby countries is also indicated on the continental map. Many tribes and languages are indicated on the U.S. map, although there is not nearly enough space to show them all.

Creating such maps with any degree of precision is impaired by several profound difficulties. Individual political and lingusitic entities were not "countries" in the current sense of the term, and usually were spread out of great distances while overlapping in territory with others. Sharp borders such as we see on maps today rarely existed. Many populations moved seasonally, as the lifestyle adapted to local climate. Almost all moved permanent homelands from place to place as Europeans moved in, usually to the west, but movement and resettlement also occured frequently before colonization began. In addition, there is great uncertainty in many cases about exactly which people were living in a given location at any given point in time. Thus, the boundaries on the map are not to be taken too seriously. They are meant to represent the approximate regions where each language family was spoken at the time that European civilization reached the areas in question.

It should be made clear that the areas shaded on the map were not political regions where a central government ruled over a single race, maintaining uniform control within specified borders. Instances of a large area under one government were rare in pre-Columbian America. In addition, one needs to recall that the languages within a language family can be very diverse. Although in some cases, an individual might be able to travel far away and find people with whom communication was easy, this was exceptional. In most cases, two different languages within the same language family will seem very different and mutually incomprehensible to the speakers of those languages. To fully appreciate this, simply consider that English is in the same family, the Indo-European family, as Dutch, Polish and Hindi.

The arrival of European culture was not kind to the indigenous cultures of the Americas. The population of the native civilizations of the current territory of the United States fell from about 20 million to the present level of less than 2 million. Beyond the shrinking size of the ethnic populations, the languages have also suffered due to the prevalence of English among those of Native American ancestry. Most Native American languages have ceased to exist, or are spoken only by older speakers, with whom the language will die in the coming decades.
Only 8 indigenous languages of the area of the continental United States currently have a population of speakers in the U.S. and Canada large enough to populate a medium-sized town. Only Navajo still has a population of greater than 25,000 within the U.S.

Language Family Locations Speakers

Navajo Athabaskan AZ, NM, UT 148,530
Cree Algic MT,Canada 60,000
Ojibwa Algic MN,ND,MT,MI,Canada 51,000
Cherokee Iroquoian OK,NC 22,500
Dakota Siouan NE,ND,SD,MN,MT,Canada 20,000
Apache Athabaskan NM,AZ,OK 15,000
Blackfoot Algic MT,Canada 10,000
Choctaw Muskogean OK, MS, LA 9,211

U.S. State names with native origins

Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, (New) Mexico, (North/South) Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Wisconsin, Wyoming.

The Algonquian-Wakashan language family of North America was one of the most widespread of Native American linguistic stocks; in historical times, tribes speaking its languages extended from coast to coast. Today the surviving languages of the Algonquian-Wakashan family are spoken by about 130,000 people in Canada and a few thousand in the Great Lakes region, Montana, Wyoming, Oklahoma, and the NE United States. The Algonquian branch of the family once had some 50 distinct tongues, among them Algonquin, Arapaho, Blackfoot, Cheyenne, Cree, Delaware, Kickapoo, Menomini, Micmac, Ojibwa (or Chippewa), Penobscot, Sac and Fox, Shawnee, and Yurok. Two other important branches of the Algonquian-Wakashan stock are Salishan and Wakashan. Among the tribes speaking Salishan languages are the Bella Coola, Klallam, Coeur d'Alene, Colville, Nisqualli, Okanogan, Pend d'Oreille, Puyallup, Salish or Flathead, Shuswap, Spokan, and Tillamook. The Salishan tongues are spoken in British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana. Tribes speaking Wakashan languages (used along the Pacific Northwest coast) include the Nootka, Nitinat, Makah, Kwakiutl, Bella Bella, and Kitamat. Polysynthesism characterizes the Algonquian-Wakashan languages, which are inflected and make great use of suffixes. Prefixes are employed to a limited extent.

The Nadene languages form another linguistic family; its branches include Athabascan , Haida, and Tlingit. The Haida and Tlingit tongues are spoken in parts of Canada and Alaska. As a whole, the Nadene languages have tones that convey meaning and some degree of polysynthesism. The verb is characterized by a reliance on aspect and voice rather than on tense.

The Penutian linguistic stock includes several branches, such as the Maidu, Wintun, and Yokuts language groups, all of which are native to California. Probably also in the Penutian family are the Sahaptin, Chinook, and Tsimshian languages of the Pacific Northwest coast, as well as other tongues in Mexico and parts of Central America. Penutian languages resemble those of the Indo-European family in several ways (for example, they have true cases for the noun).

The Hokan-Siouan family is thought to include a number of linguistic groups, but the classification of some of them is still disputed. Among the groups generally considered branches of the Hokan-Siouan stock are Muskogean, whose languages include such tongues as Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, and Seminole, which are spoken in Oklahoma and Florida; Caddoan, composed of the Caddo, Wichita, Pawnee, and Arikara languages found in Oklahoma and North Dakota; Yuman, with individual languages (such as Cocopa, Havasupai, Kamia, Maricopa, Mohave, Yavapaí, and Yuma) in Arizona and California; Iroquoian, to which belong the Seneca, Cayuga, Onandaga, Mohawk, Oneida, Wyandot, and Tuscarora languages spoken in New York, Wisconsin, and Oklahoma, as well as the Cherokee tongue found in Oklahoma and North Carolina; and Siouan, which includes Catawba (in South Carolina), Winnebago (in Wisconsin and Nebraska), Osage (in Nebraska and Oklahoma), Dakota and Assiniboin (in Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, and Nebraska), and Crow (in Montana). Languages of the Hokan-Siouan stock are also found in Mexico and parts of Central America. These Hokan-Siouan languages tend to be agglutinative; various word elements, each having a fixed meaning and an independent existence, are merged to form a single word.

The two principal branches of the Aztec-Tanoan linguistic stock are Uto-Aztecan and Tanoan, and their languages are spoken in areas extending from the NW United States to Mexico and Central America. Uto-Aztecan has such subdivisions, or groups, as Nahuatlan , whose languages are spoken in Mexico and parts of Central America, and Shoshonean, to which Comanche, Hopi, Paiute, Shoshone, and Ute belong. Ute and Paiute are found in Utah, Nevada, California, and Arizona; Comanche and Shoshone are spoken in Wyoming, Nevada, Utah, California, and Oklahoma; Hopi is found in Arizona. The languages of the Tanoan branch of Aztec-Tanoan are spoken in the Rio Grande valley, New Mexico, and Arizona. Zuñi (found in New Mexico) may be connected with Tanoan. The Aztec-Tanoan languages show a degree of polysynthesism.

Of the languages of Mexico and Central America, about 24 linguistic groups, or stocks, have been identified; it is still not clear which of these can be classified together to reduce the number of groups. Among these groups is Yuman, whose tongues are spoken in Baja California and are related to the Yuman languages found in the United States. In both, Yuman falls within the larger Hokan-Siouan classification, which, in Mexico and parts of Central America, also includes the Coahuiltecan, Guaycuran, and Jicaque stocks, or groups. The Otomian stock (current in central Mexico and including the Otomí language) forms part of the larger Macro-Otomanguean division, in which the Mixtecan and Zapotecan stocks of Mexico are often placed. The Nahuatlan group, as indicated earlier, is classified under Uto-Aztecan, some of whose languages are found in Mexico and parts of Central America. Uto-Aztecan is itself a branch of the greater Aztec-Tanoan stock. Nahuatl, or Aztec, is a language of the Nahuatlan group. Mayan, which is found in Yucatán and parts of Central America and to which the language Maya belongs, is part of the larger Penutian linguistic stock. The Penutian stock also has as members the Huave, Mixe-Zoque, and Totonacan branches, whose languages are spoken in Mexico and Guatemala. In Mexico and parts of Central America, there are still about 4 million speakers of the modern dialects of Maya proper, which was the official language of the ancient Mayan empire before the Spanish conquest of the New World. The languages of two South American stocks, Cariban and Chibchan, can also be found in Central America.

Written literature in the usual sense does not exist in the indigenous American languages; however, there are folk literatures. Communication by writing among the Native Americans in the aboriginal period was limited to the Maya and the Aztecs. Both cultures used a form of picture writing to represent their ideas. About 800 of the Maya hieroglyphs, or symbols, are known, and in recent years substantial progress has been made in deciphering them. Not many texts of the Maya survive, the most numerous being inscriptions on buildings.

The Incas of Peru used a system of knotted cords, ropes, or strings to communicate. Called the quipu, it is considered a form of writing. The color and shape of the knotted cords were the clues to meaning. For instance, green cords signified grain, and red cords, soldiers. One knot stood for the number 10; two knots, 20; a double knot, 100. Among Native Americans of E North America, beaded wampum belts often contained pictographic symbols for communication.

Another means of nonlinguistic communication among many of the indigenous North Americans was sign language , consisting of gestures with the hands and arms. One advantage of sign language was that it made communication possible among Native American groups having different languages. In addition, smoke signals were used by some Native Americans to convey information, but they were capable only of giving simple messages, such as "enemies in the area" or some previously agreed-upon message.

Native Language Death and Revitalization

A language with no native speakers is called "dead" language and a language, which has no native speakers in the youngest generation, is called "moribund." A language, which has very few native speakers, is called "endangered" or "imperiled". Native American languages are in peril, and more than ever they are in need of revitalization. In the natural course of things, languages sometimes die for variety of reasons. People for many social reasons do not wish to teach their children the mother tongue.

In the case of American Indian languages, the drop-off has been artificially created. In the earlier days of European contact, Indians were resettled hundreds of miles away with individuals from other tribes who couldn't understand each other, which proved to be the most effective way of eliminating minority languages. And later on the children from non-English-speaking households were sent to boarding schools to be "socialized", which in reality was speeding up the death of minority culture and language.

Once majority of the young people in a community stop to communicate in their mother tongue, its usage rapidly declines. Language revitalization is the saving of a "dying" language. Hebrew is the only successful attempt of a complete language revival creating a new generation of native speakers. The easy to revitalize a dying language is by inspiring the younger generations to take interest and pride in their ancestral languages.