Language
The earliest Europeans in the Carolinas were astounded by the linguistic diversity of what is now the Southeastern United States. Within the region now known as North Carolina, three language families were represented, as distinct from one another as Indo-European languages are from Uralic languages:
- The Hatteras, Chowan, Moratok, Pamlico, Secotan, Machapunga, and the Weapemeoc of the coastal plain spoke a variety of Algonquian languages.
- The Cherokee, Tuscarora, Coree, and Meherrin, who inhabited homelands from the coastal plain to the Appalachian Mountains, spoke a variety of Iroquoian languages.
- The Catawba, Cheraw, Cape Fear, Eno, Keyauwee, Occaneechi, Tutelo, Saponi, Shakori, Sissipahaw, Sugeree, Wateree, Waxhaw, and Waccamaw of the Cape Fear River and Piedmont regions, were related Siouan-speaking peoples.
The ancestral Siouan Woccon language of the Waccamaw Siouan Indians of North Carolina was lost due to devastating population losses and social disruption of the 18th and 19th centuries, and survives in only a handful of vocabulary items that were recorded in the early 1700s.
Read more about this topic: Waccamaw Siouan
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