Iroquoian languages

Iroquoian languages form an Indigenous language family historically spoken mainly in eastern North America. The family includes languages with distinct communities, histories, and grammatical systems.

Northern Iroquoian languages: A branch of Iroquoian languages that includes Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, and Tuscarora. This major branch groups the languages historically spoken around the Great Lakes and northeastern woodlands.
Mohawk language: A Northern Iroquoian language spoken by Mohawk communities in Canada and the United States. Mohawk is among the family's best-known languages and has active community revitalization.
Proto-Iroquoian language: The reconstructed common ancestor of the Iroquoian languages. Comparative evidence from daughter languages is used to infer this ancestral language.
Language revitalization: Efforts to increase the use and transmission of a language that has lost speakers or domains of use. Iroquoian communities use revitalization programs to strengthen intergenerational language transmission.
Sequoyah: A Cherokee silversmith and scholar who developed the Cherokee syllabary. His writing system made literacy in Cherokee possible without adapting an alphabet.
Southern Iroquoian languages: A branch of Iroquoian languages that includes Cherokee and the extinct languages of the Carolinas and Virginia. Its languages place the family's historical reach well south of the Great Lakes.
Oneida language: A Northern Iroquoian language traditionally spoken by the Oneida people in New York, Wisconsin, and Ontario. Oneida illustrates a distinct language community within the northern branch.
Proto-Northern Iroquoian language: The reconstructed ancestor of the Northern Iroquoian languages. It represents the shared predecessor of the family's northern branch.
Language documentation: The systematic recording and description of a language through materials such as texts, recordings, and grammars. Documentation supports teaching and preserves linguistic knowledge across generations.
John Eliot: A seventeenth-century English Puritan missionary who produced religious works in Indigenous languages of New England. His work offers early written evidence relevant to historical study of Iroquoian languages.

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