Nottoway People - Language

Language

The Nottoway language went extinct well before 1900. At the time of European contact (1650), speakers numbered only in the hundreds. From then until 1735, a number of colonists learned the language and acted as official interpreters for the Virginia Colony, including Thomas Blunt, Henry Briggs and Thomas Wynn. These interpreters also served the adjacent Meherrin, as well as the Nansemond, who spoke Nottoway in addition to their own Algonquian dialect of Powhatan. The last two interpreters were dismissed in 1735, since the Nottoway by then were using English.

By 1820, there were said to be only three elderly speakers of Nottoway remaining. In that year John Wood collected over 250 word samples from one of these, Chief "Queen" Edie Turner. He sent them to Thomas Jefferson, who shared them with Peter DuPonceau. In their correspondence, these two men quickly confirmed the Nottoway language as of the Iroquoian family. Several additional words, for a total of about 275, were collected by James Trezvant after 1831, and published by Albert Gallatin in 1836.

In the early 20th century, Hewitt (1910) and Hoffman (1959) analyzed the Nottoway vocabulary in comparison with Tuscarora, and found them closely related. The Tuscarora had all lived in North Carolina at one time. Due to warfare and colonial pressure, most of the Tuscarora migrated north to New York in the early eighteenth century to seek protection by alliance with the Iroquois Confederacy. They declared their migration ended in 1722, and said Tuscarora living elsewhere were no longer members of the tribe. A significant population in North Carolina claim descent from the Tuscarora and identify under that name.