- published: 27 Jan 2016
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The 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.
Five languages belong to the Caddoan language family:
The Kitsai language is now extinct, as its members were absorbed in the 19th century into the Wichita tribe. All of the other Caddoan languages are critically endangered; Caddo is now spoken by only 25 people, Pawnee by 20, Arikara by three, and Wichita by just one tribal elder, Doris McLemore. Caddo, Wichita, and Pawnee are spoken in Oklahoma by small numbers of tribal elders. Arikara is spoken on the Fort Berthold Reservation in North Dakota.
Speakers of some of the languages were formerly more widespread; the Caddo, for example, used to live in northeastern Texas, southwestern Arkansas, and northwestern Louisiana, as well as southeastern Oklahoma. The Pawnee formerly lived along the Platte River in what is now Nebraska.
Glottochronology is a controversial method of reconstructing in broad detail the history of a language and its relationships. In the case of proto-Caddoan it appears that it divided into two branches, Northern and Southern, more than 3,000 years ago. (The division of the language implies also a geographic and/or political separation.) South Caddoan or Caddo proper evolved in north-eastern Texas and adjacent Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Louisiana. No daughter languages are known, although some probably existed in the 16th and 17th century but were not recorded.
The Osage Nation is a Native American Siouan-speaking tribe in the United States that originated in the Ohio River valley in present-day Kentucky. After years of war with invading Iroquois, the Osage migrated west of the Mississippi River to their historic lands in present-day Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, and Oklahoma by the mid-17th century. At the height of their power in the early 18th century, the Osage had become the dominant power in their region, controlling the area between the Missouri and Red rivers. They are a federally recognized tribe and based mainly in Osage County, Oklahoma, coterminous with their reservation. Members are found throughout the country.
The 19-century painter George Catlin described the Osage as
The missionary Isaac McCoy described the Osage as an "uncommonly fierce, courageous, warlike nation" and Washington Irving said they were the "finest looking Indians I have ever seen in the West."
The Osage language is part of the Dhegihan branch of the Siouan stock of Native American languages. They originally lived among speakers of the same Dhegihan stock, such as the Kansa, Ponca, Omaha, and Quapaw in the Ohio Valley. The tribes likely became differentiated in languages and cultures after leaving the lower Ohio country.