Miami–Illinois language
Miami–Illinois or Wabash is an Indigenous Algonquian language that is spoken in the United States, historically in Illinois, Missouri, Indiana, western Ohio and adjacent areas along the Mississippi River by the Miami and Wea as well as the tribes of the Illinois Confederation, including the Kaskaskia, Peoria, Tamaroa, Cahokia, and possibly Mitchigamea. Although the last native speaker died in 1989, there has been an effort by the Myaamia Nation of Oklahoma and the Miami Nation of Indians of the State of Indiana to revive the language and preserve their native heritage by teaching it to young and old members. As of 2016, it is estimated that around 500 members of the tribe use the language on a regular basis.
Classification
Miami–Illinois is an Algonquian language within the larger Algic family. It is usually described as a Central Algonquian language, but that grouping denotes a geographic rather than genetic affiliation. A thorough genetic classification of Central Algonquian languages has not yet been achieved, and so Miami–Illinois' closest relatives have not been conclusively established. Lexically, Miami–Illinois most closely resembles the Sauk–Fox–Kickapoo language; its phonology and morphology, however, are more reminiscent of Ojibwe–Potawatomi–Ottawa.The term Miami–Illinois covers the language varieties spoken by several different groups throughout history. Illinois denotes specifically the language common to the Illinois Confederation described in 17th- and 18th-century French missionary sources, and the subsequent dialect of the consolidated Peoria tribe; Miami denotes the precontact dialects of the Miami, Wea, and Piankeshaw indigenous to Indiana. Due to the low quality of many records and the complex post-contact history of the groups concerned, the dialectology of Miami–Illinois is difficult to reconstruct for any historical period, but by the end of the 19th century dialectal diversity was minimal, being limited to a modest three-way division between Peoria, Miami proper, and Wea.
History and documentation
The history of the Miami–Illinois language prior to revitalization can be divided into three periods: the Illinois Confederation and early contact, population decline and relocation to Oklahoma in the 19th century, and language loss leading to extinction in the 20th century.The Miami–Illinois of the first period is recorded primarily by French Catholic missionaries in what is now Illinois, beginning with a collection of prayers, instruction, and catechisms written by Claude-Jean Allouez in Kaskaskia in the late 17th century. A much more extensive document – an Illinois-French dictionary of nearly 600 pages and 20,000 entries – was compiled by Jacques Gravier in the early 18th century. Based on an analysis of its handwriting, it appears to have been transcribed by his assistant, Jacques Largillier. Gravier's original dictionary is held by Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. Two other notable sources from this time period are extant: a 185-page word list compiled by Antoine-Robert Le Boullenger with about 3,300 items, along with 42 pages of untranslated religious material, and an anonymous 672-page dictionary probably intended as a field lexicon. Despite representing Miami–Illinois as it was spoken more than three centuries ago, these sources are readily intelligible with a knowledge of modern Miami.
Probably obtained from the Kaskaskia tribe, among whom the French had set up a mission, these documents doubtless approximate the lingua franca of the Illinois Confederation as a whole. Individual tribes within the Confederation, however, may well have spoken distinct dialects or other languages altogether. The linguistic affinity of the Mitchigamea in particular has been questioned, since Jacques Marquette mentions a Mitchigamea interpreter who understood little Illinois.
During the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the Miami–Illinois people experienced a rapid population decline due to introduced diseases, depredations by neighboring tribes, the Northwest Indian War, and subsequent Anglo-American colonisation. In contrast to the French missionary literature, Anglo-American documentation of the language from this period varies widely in both extent and quality. The Miami chief Little Turtle's visit to Philadelphia created some interest in his culture, leading to two word lists of reasonable quality - one apparently commissioned by Thomas Jefferson. The most significant materials of the early 19th century are the linguistic and ethnographic notes of Charles Trowbridge and an anonymous 42-page Wea Primer written for Protestant missionaries in Kansas in 1837.
The first migrations out of the original Miami–Illinois heartland took place at this time. By 1832, there were virtually no Miami–Illinois speakers in Illinois; those who had survived the collapse of the previous decades had emigrated to Kansas via Missouri. The formerly diverse tribes of the Illinois Confederation had consolidated, and identified simply as "Peoria" or "Kaskaskia". In 1867, these groups left Kansas and entered the Indian Territory to settle in the Quapaw Agency, where they would be joined by the Piankeshaw and Wea simultaneously forced out of Indiana. The tribes subsequently amalgamated to form the modern Peoria tribe. The Miami proper, meanwhile, split in 1847 between those remaining in northern Indiana and those leaving for Kansas; the latter group moved to the Quapaw Agency in the 1870s, but did not assimilate to the Peoria, and are now incorporated as the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma. The Miami who remained in Indiana now identify as the Miami Nation of Indiana, but lack federal recognition as such.
The use of the Miami–Illinois language declined precipitously after the migration to Oklahoma because of the concentration of various tribes, each with a different native language, in a single relatively small area. English served naturally as the lingua franca of the Quapaw Agency, and minority languages soon underwent attrition. Nonetheless, the Miami–Illinois of this period has left valuable documentation due to the work of trained linguists and ethnographers in the area. Albert Gatschet recorded several examples of connected speech, including mythological narratives, and Truman Michelson elicited grammatical material and stories. These relatively long documents are valuable for reconstructing speech patterns in Miami-Illinois.
Due to a comparative lack of contemporary interest in the language, it is difficult to identify the last native speakers of Miami–Illinois in either Indiana or Oklahoma, or the contexts in which the language last saw everyday use. The documentation of the 1950s and 1960s shows a language in the advanced stages of attrition, as seen in Herbert Bussard's notes on the speech of Ross Bundy. The grammatical complexity of Bundy's Miami was significantly reduced and analogised to English in comparison to "standard" Miami–Illinois. The language as a whole was moribund by the 1930s, and probably no longer natively spoken by the 1970s.
The revitalization effort is based on the work of linguist David Costa. Based on his extensive studies, he published The Miami-Illinois Language in 1994 as his Ph.D. dissertation and as a book in 2003. The book reconstructs the structure of Miami–Illinois.
Language revitalization
Many Miami members have described the language as "sleeping" rather than "extinct" since it was not irretrievably lost.The Myaamia Center is a joint venture between the tribe and Miami University. The Center seeks to "deepen Myaamia connections through research, education, and outreach." It is directed by Daryl Baldwin, who taught himself Miami from historic documents and studies held by the Smithsonian's National Anthropological Archives, and has developed educational programs. Baldwin's children were raised as native speakers of Miami. Center staff develop language and culture resources using material that is often from translated missionary documents.
Published language and culture resources include:
- a children's book of Miami language and culture;
- an audio CD set with vocabulary, phrases, conversation, and the Miami origin story and a companion text; and
- a compilation of traditional stories from the Miami and Peoria tribes, recorded in the early 20th century when the language's last native speakers were alive.
Phonology
The phonology of Miami–Illinois is typical of a Central Algonquian language, and fairly conservative with regard to Proto-Algonquian.Consonants
Miami–Illinois distinguishes thirteen consonants:| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |
| Stop | |||||
| Fricative | |||||
| Nasal | |||||
| Approximant |
The intervocalic clusters permitted are -hC- and -NC-, where C is a non-glottal obstruent and N is a homorganic nasal. -hC- clusters are described as "preaspirated". The 18th-century Illinois recorded in the French mission period also permitted intervocalic clusters -sp- and -sk-, but these have merged with -hp- and -hk- in modern Miami. In addition, many consonants and clusters can be followed by a tautosyllabic.
Obstruents are voiced after nasals. Preaspirated sibilants and frequently assimilate to geminate and, respectively, especially after front and word-initial vowels.