Proto-Iroquoian is the theoretical

proto-language In the tree model of historical linguistics, a proto-language is a postulated ancestral language from which a number of attested languages are believed to have descended by evolution, forming a language family. Proto-languages are usually unattes ...

of the Iroquoian languages. Lounsbury (1961) estimated from glottochronology a time depth of 3,500 to 3,800 years for the split of North and South Iroquoian. At the time of early European contact, French explorers in the 16th century encountered villages along the St. Lawrence River, now associated with the St. Lawrence Iroquoian. Other better known northern tribes took over their territory and displaced them, and were later encountered by more French, European and English colonists. These tribes included the Huron and

Neutral Neutral or neutrality may refer to: Mathematics and natural science Biology * Neutral organisms, in ecology, those that obey the unified neutral theory of biodiversity Chemistry and physics * Neutralization (chemistry), a chemical reaction in ...

in modern-day

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...

, first encountered by French explorers and traders; the Five Nations of the Iroquois League in

Upstate New York Upstate New York is a geographic region consisting of the area of New York State that lies north and northwest of the New York City metropolitan area. Although the precise boundary is debated, Upstate New York excludes New York City and Long Is ...

and Pennsylvania, and the Erie Nation and Susquehannock peoples in Pennsylvania. Southern speakers of Iroquoian languages ranged from the

Cherokee The Cherokee (; chr, ᎠᏂᏴᏫᏯᎢ, translit=Aniyvwiyaʔi or Anigiduwagi, or chr, ᏣᎳᎩ, links=no, translit=Tsalagi) are one of the indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, t ...

in the

Great Smoky Mountains The Great Smoky Mountains (, ''Equa Dutsusdu Dodalv'') are a mountain range rising along the Tennessee–North Carolina border in the southeastern United States. They are a subrange of the Appalachian Mountains, and form part of the Blue Ridge ...

, to the Tuscarora and Nottoway in the interior near the modern

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...

North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and ...

border.

Subdivisions

The Iroquoian languages are usually divided into two main groups: Southern Iroquoian (

) and Northern Iroquoian (all others) based on the great differences in vocabulary and modern phonology. Northern Iroquoian is further divided by Lounsbury and Mithun into Proto-Tuscarora-Nottoway and Lake Iroquoian. Julian (2010) does not believe Lake Iroquoian to be a valid subgrouping.

History of studies

Isolated studies were done by Chafe (1977a), Michelson (1988), and Rudes (1995). There have also been several works of internal reconstruction for daughter languages, in particular

Seneca Seneca may refer to: People and language * Seneca (name), a list of people with either the given name or surname * Seneca people, one of the six Iroquois tribes of North America ** Seneca language, the language of the Seneca people Places Extrat ...

and

Mohawk Mohawk may refer to: Related to Native Americans * Mohawk people, an indigenous people of North America (Canada and New York) *Mohawk language, the language spoken by the Mohawk people * Mohawk hairstyle, from a hairstyle once thought to have been ...

. A preliminary full reconstruction of Proto-Iroquoian was not provided until Charles Julian's (2010) work.

Phonology

Proto-Iroquoian as reconstructed shares the Iroquoian languages' notable typological traits of small

consonant In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced wi ...

inventories, complex consonant clusters, and a lack of

labial consonant Labial consonants are consonants in which one or both lips are the active articulator. The two common labial articulations are bilabials, articulated using both lips, and labiodentals, articulated with the lower lip against the upper teeth, bot ...

Vowels

The reconstructed vowel inventory for Proto-Iroquoian is: Like later Iroquoian languages, Proto-Iroquoian is distinguished in having nasal vowels /õ/ and /ẽ/, although it has more than in its daughter languages.

Consonants

The reconstructed consonant inventory for Proto-Iroquoian is given in the table below. The consonants of all Iroquoian languages pattern so that they may be grouped as (oral) obstruents, sibilants, laryngeals, and resonants (Lounsbury 1978:337).

Morphology

Reconstructed functional morphemes from Julian (2010):

Lexicon

Reconstructed lexical roots and particles from Julian (2010):

References

* * Barbeau, Marius. (1960).
Huron-Wyandot Traditional Narratives in Translations and Native Texts
'. Ottawa: National Museum of Canada, Bulletin 165, Anthropological Series No. 47. *Chafe, Wallace. (1977a). "Accent and Related Phenomena in the Five Nations Iroquois Languages". In Larry Hyman, ed. ''Studies in Stress and Accent'', 169-181. Southern California Occasional Papers in Linguistics 4. *Michelson, Karin. (1988). ''A Comparative Study of Lake-Iroquoian Accent''. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. *Rudes, Blair. (1995). "Iroquoian Vowels". ''Anthropological Linguistics'' 37: 16-69. *Lounsbury, Floyd. (1961). Iroquois-Cherokee Linguistic Relations. In William Fenton and John Gulick, eds. ''Symposium on Cherokee and Iroquois Culture''. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 180, 11-17. * Lounsbury, Floyd G. (1978). "Iroquoian Languages". in Bruce G. Trigger (ed.). ''Handbook of North American Indians'', Vol. 15: Northeast. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution. pp. 334–343. . *Mooney, James. (1900). ''Myths of the Cherokee''. 19th Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, Part 1, 3-548. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office. {{DEFAULTSORT:Proto-Iroquoian language

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, all surviving Iroquoian ...

Iroquoian languages