Proto-Iroquoian | |
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Reconstruction of | Iroquoian languages |
Era | ca. 1500 BCE |
Proto-Iroquoian is the theoretical proto-language 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 in modern-day Ontario, first encountered by French explorers and traders; the Five Nations of the Iroquois League in Upstate New York and Pennsylvania, and the Erie Nation and Susquehannock peoples in Pennsylvania.
Southern speakers of Iroquoian languages ranged from the Cherokee in the Great Smoky Mountains, to the Tuscarora and Nottoway in the interior near the modern Virginia/North Carolina border.
The Iroquoian languages are usually divided into two main groups: Southern Iroquoian (Cherokee) and Northern Iroquoian (all others) based on the great differences in vocabulary and modern phonology.[ citation needed ] Northern Iroquoian is further divided by Lounsbury and Mithun into Proto-Tuscarora-Nottoway and Lake Iroquoian.[ citation needed ] Julian (2010) does not believe Lake Iroquoian to be a valid subgrouping.[ citation needed ]
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.[ citation needed ]
Proto-Iroquoian as reconstructed shares the Iroquoian languages' notable typological traits of small consonant inventories, complex consonant clusters, and a lack of labial consonants.
The reconstructed vowel inventory for Proto-Iroquoian is: [1]
Front | Central | Back | |
---|---|---|---|
Close | i iː | u uː | |
Mid | e eː ẽ ẽː | o oː õ õː | |
Open | a aː |
Like later Iroquoian languages, Proto-Iroquoian is distinguished in having nasal vowels /õ/ and /ẽ/, although it has more than in its daughter languages.
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).
Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Plosive | t | k kʷ | ʔ | |
Affricate | ts | |||
Fricative | s | h | ||
Nasal | n | |||
Approximant | ɹ | j | w |
Reconstructed functional morphemes from Julian (2010):
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Reconstructed lexical roots and particles from Julian (2010):
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The Tuscarora are an Indigenous Peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands in Canada and the United States. They are an Iroquoian Native American and First Nations people. The Tuscarora Nation, a federally recognized tribe, is based in New York, and the Tuscarora First Nation is one of the Six Nations of the Grand River in Ontario.
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