The Macro-Siouan languages are a proposed
language family
A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ancestor, called the proto-language of that family. The term ''family'' is a metaphor borrowed from biology, with the tree model used in historical linguistics ...
that includes the
Siouan,
Iroquoian
The Iroquoian languages () are a language family of indigenous peoples of North America. They are known for their general lack of labial consonants. The Iroquoian languages are polysynthetic and head-marking.
As of 2020, almost all surviving I ...
, 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 century,
Robert Latham suggested that the Siouan languages are related to the
Caddoan and
Iroquoian languages
The Iroquoian languages () are a language family of indigenous peoples of North America. They are known for their general lack of labial consonants. The Iroquoian languages are polysynthetic and head-marking.
As of 2020, almost all surviving I ...
. In 1931, Louis Allen presented the first list of systematic correspondences between a set of 25 lexical items in Siouan and Iroquoian. In the 1960s and 1970s,
Wallace Chafe further explored the link between Siouan and Caddoan languages. In the 1990s,
Marianne Mithun
Marianne Mithun ( ; born 1946) is an American linguist specializing in American Indian languages and language typology. She is a professor of linguistics at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where she has held an academic position sinc ...
compared the morphology and syntax of all the three families. At present, the Macro-Siouan hypothesis based on relations among Siouan, Caddoan, and Iroquoian is not universally accepted as proven.
[Mithun, Marianne. 1999. ''The languages of native North America''. p.305. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.]
Vocabulary
Below is a comparison of selected basic vocabulary items in
Proto-Siouan,
Proto-Iroquoian, and
Pawnee Pawnee initially refers to a Native American people and its language:
* Pawnee people
* Pawnee language
Pawnee is also the name of several places in the United States:
* Pawnee, Illinois
* Pawnee, Kansas
* Pawnee, Missouri
* Pawnee City, Nebraska
* ...
(a
Caddoan language).
;Abbreviations:
*N = Proto-Northern Iroquoian
:
Notes
Bibliography
*Campbell, Lyle (1997).
American Indian Languages: The Historical Linguistics of Native America'. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
{{North American languages
Proposed language families