And was there much mixing between them
2007-03-27 14:40:27 · 10 answers · asked by Anonymous in Society & Culture ➔ Cultures & Groups ➔ Other - Cultures & Groups
To cubcowbo i don't know why you feel the need to answer this question like this .I'm from the UK and i have never been to the USA .But in life we learn by asking questions
2007-03-27 15:08:52 · update #1
Nope. they are all different, although at times they sound similar , really depending on what tribe it is. I live on a reservation which are not my tribe, and the people have a language that is extremely hard to learn, even for the people who are from this tribe, and the language from my tribe, which is about only 100 miles from here, is so easy, it can be compared to learning basic Spanish. So yeah, it just all depends on what tribe it is and where it is located.
2007-03-27 15:37:04 · answer #1 · answered by sweetness 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
First of all, get rid of the notion of tribes. That was a convention used by the US government so they could easily classify Native Americans. Before Native Americans were classified into tribes, we had dialects that were local to various small groups and regions. After we were classified into tribes, each tribes' languages began to become homogenized.
That's not say that every tribes' languages became distinct from each other. For instance, the Creek and Seminole languages are nearly identical. Among the Navajo, the largest tribe in the US, there are two dialects that exist today among Navajos on the eastern and western areas of our reservation. The Navajo and various Apache tribes also speak a nearly identical language. In fact, when the Spaniards first arrived in the Southwest they called the Navajo, Apache de Nabahu, because our cultures were so similar. It was only the US governments system of classification that caused us to become "different" from each other.
2007-03-29 03:29:20 · answer #2 · answered by Kookiemon 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I am a Native woman.
Every tribe has a different language.
There are language families which signify similarities in language. An example you might understand is the Romance languages or Latin based languages such as English, Spanish, Italian, etc...
There were trade languages. These languages were shared by many Natives within the same region so they could trade with each other. One example of this is Chinook Jargon (Chinook WaWa).
Here is a site that shows links to Many Native languages and also categorizes them by language family if you'd like.
http://www.native-languages.org
2007-03-28 23:37:26 · answer #3 · answered by RedPower Woman 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
There are many many many different languages. There are "language families" where some Nations near each other have languages with similar sounds and structure, but not the same words.
Here is a map on the language families, the regions and tribes/Nations that have "similar" languages:
http://www.cogsci.indiana.edu/farg/rehling/nativeAm/namap.gif
Now the tribes within any given Nation (like the "Sioux" Nation has a number of tribes in it) often have different dialects. I.E. The "Sioux" have a number of tribes among the Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota, which are all of that same Nation and speak the same language, but have a different dialect, or accent in a sense.
2007-03-28 00:06:38 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 3⤊ 0⤋
i am Canadian. i know Indians . they speak or spoke different languages. they were much more advanced then the blacks in Africa. they had trade with other tribes and a system of government based on a chief as well mixing of the tribes did take place some voluntary some not so voluntary. the chiefs daughters would marry off to another top more or less royal man from a different tribe.
the similarity in the languages is not enough that one could really get along understand the other .
2007-03-27 21:54:26 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
Uhmmmmmmmm no.
The Tribes are very diversified and they did and do not speak the same languages. Some of the Tribes spoke (and speak) similar langauges and could (and can) make each other out in their native tongue... that depends upon the locale.
Some Tribes developed a sort of sign langauge, in fact, so they could communicate between each other when they had to meet for such as trading. That was the foundation of American Sign Langauge, in fact.
If you think of the size of America, there is no way that seperate Tribes had a common language.
2007-03-27 21:52:03 · answer #6 · answered by j 5 · 2⤊ 0⤋
similar and different. there are families of languages where tribes in a geographic region have similar language although they are not the same. different geographic regions have completely different language families. there is a map that shows the language groups of all the tribes around the 1800s.. search and you will find.
2007-03-27 21:49:28 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 3⤊ 0⤋
They are very different. I was raised on the Hopi Nation reservation. That Nation is completely within the Navajo Nation - yet though they are that close physically, the languages are not at all similar. I once could speak Hopi - but could not converse with a Navajo in his language. We both had to revert to English in order to communicate.
*sigh* that was fifty years ago - can't recall a single word in Hopi any more.
2007-03-27 22:00:15 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
Are the languages of the native American states the same, similar or completely different?
Are the languages of the native American regions the same, similar or completely different?
Are the languages of the native American ethnicities the same, similar or completely different?
2007-03-27 21:46:53 · answer #9 · answered by cubcowboysgirl 5 · 0⤊ 5⤋
they sound similar in the same was italian sounds like latin, or English sound like american...
to teh untrained ear its all gobbledygook, but i believe there were several nations with totally different tongues...
the smithsonian keeps a record of all the nations and their tongues...
2007-03-27 21:56:10 · answer #10 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋