The Dhegihan languages are a group of

Siouan languages Siouan ( ), also known as Siouan–Catawban ( ), is a language family of North America located primarily in the Great Plains, Ohio and Mississippi valleys and southeastern North America with a few other languages in the east. Name Authors who ...

that include Kansa– Osage, Omaha–Ponca, and

Quapaw The Quapaw ( , Quapaw language, Quapaw: ) or Arkansas, officially the Quapaw Nation, is a List of federally recognized tribes in the United States, U.S. federally recognized tribe comprising about 6,000 citizens. Also known as the Ogáxpa or � ...

. Their historical region included parts of the Ohio and Mississippi River Valleys, the

Great Plains The Great Plains is a broad expanse of plain, flatland in North America. The region stretches east of the Rocky Mountains, much of it covered in prairie, steppe, and grassland. They are the western part of the Interior Plains, which include th ...

, and southeastern North America. The shared

Dhegihan migration The Dhegihan migration and separation was the long journey on foot by the North American Indians in the ancient Hą́ke tribe. During the migration from present-day Illinois/Kentucky and as far as Nebraska, they gradually split up into five grou ...

story places them as a united group in the late 1600s near the confluence of the

Ohio Ohio ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Erie to the north, Pennsylvania to the east, West Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Indiana to the ...

and

Tennessee Tennessee (, ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Kentucky to the north, Virginia to the northeast, North Carolina t ...

rivers (southern

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. It borders on Lake Michigan to its northeast, the Mississippi River to its west, and the Wabash River, Wabash and Ohio River, Ohio rivers to its ...

and western

Kentucky Kentucky (, ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north, West Virginia to the ...

) which then moved westward towards the

Missouri River The Missouri River is a river in the Central United States, Central and Mountain states, Mountain West regions of the United States. The nation's longest, it rises in the eastern Centennial Mountains of the Bitterroot Range of the Rocky Moun ...

, and separated into different bands. However, some oral traditions and archeological evidence indicate that Dhegihan speaking peoples may have migrated west out of the Ohio River Valley much earlier. The Dhegihan languages were first described and classified as Siouan languages by James Dorsey in 1885. According to Dorsey, "Degiha" translates to "Belonging to the people of this land" or "Those who dwell here" in Omaha-Ponca. Other dialectical variants recorded by Dorsey with the same translation include "Ye-ga-ha" (Kansa), "De-ka-ha" (Osage), and "Ugapa" (Quapaw). Kansa and Osage are mutually intelligible, meaning that they are two distinct

dialects A dialect is a variety of language spoken by a particular group of people. This may include dominant and standardized varieties as well as vernacular, unwritten, or non-standardized varieties, such as those used in developing countries or iso ...

of a single language. The same is true for Omaha and Ponca. The 2nd Annual Dhegiha Gathering in 2012 brought Kansa, Quapaw, Osage, Ponca and Omaha speakers together to share best practices in language revitalization.

References

Indigenous languages of the North American Plains Indigenous languages of the North American Southeast Indigenous languages of Oklahoma Western Siouan languages {{IndigenousAmerican-lang-stub

See also

References