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 unatte ...

of the

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 ...

. Lounsbury (1961) estimated from

glottochronology Glottochronology (from Attic Greek γλῶττα ''tongue, language'' and χρόνος ''time'') is the part of lexicostatistics which involves comparative linguistics and deals with the chronological relationship between languages.Sheila Embleton ...

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 in modern-day

Ontario Ontario is the southernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the Population of Canada by province and territory, country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it ...

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

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

Cherokee The Cherokee (; , or ) people are one of the Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, they were concentrated in their homelands, in towns along river valleys of what is now southwestern ...

in the

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

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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 and Mohawk. 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, except for the h sound, which is pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Examples are and pronou ...

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, b ...

Vowels

The reconstructed vowel inventory for Proto-Iroquoian is: Like later Iroquoian languages, Proto-Iroquoian is distinguished in having nasal vowels and , 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, almost all surviving I ...

Iroquoian languages