The Catawban, or Eastern Siouan, languages form a small

language family A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ''ancestral language'' or ''parental language'', called the proto-language of that family. The term "family" reflects the tree model of language origination in his ...

in east North America. The Catawban family is a branch of the larger Siouan a.k.a. Siouan–Catawban family.

Family division

The Catawban family consists of two languages: # Catawba ''(†)'' – spoken by the

Catawba people The Catawba, also known as Issa, Essa or Iswä but most commonly ''Iswa'' (Catawba: '' Ye Iswąˀ'' – "people of the river"), are a federally recognized tribe of Native Americans, known as the Catawba Indian Nation. Their current lands ar ...

# Woccon ''(†)'' – spoken by the Waccamaw people Both are now extinct. They were not closely related.

References

* Parks, Douglas R.; & Rankin, Robert L. (2001). The Siouan languages. In R. J. DeMallie (Ed.), ''Handbook of North American Indians: Plains'' (Vol. 13, Part 1, pp. 94–114). W. C. Sturtevant (Gen. Ed.). Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution. . Catawba Indigenous languages of the North American Southeast Languages of the United States Extinct languages of North America {{IndigenousAmerican-lang-stub