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The Siouan (a.k.a. Siouan proper, Western Siouan) languages are a Native American language family of North America. The Siouan family is related to the Catawban family, together making up the Siouan-Catawban family. Some authors use the term Siouan to refer to the Siouan-Catawban family and the term Siouan proper to refer to the Siouan family. 
While the Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota comprise "the Great Sioux Nation", the language family is much broader and includes "the old speakers", the Ho-Chunk and their linguistic cousins, the Crow. The Siouan family also extends back East and down South. The name "Sioux" is an abbreviated form of Nadouessioux borrowed into French Canadian from Nadoüessioüak from the early Ottawa exonym: na·towe·ssiwak "Sioux". The Proto-Algonquian form *nātowēwa meaning "Northern Iroquoian" has reflexes in several daughter languages that refer to a small rattlesnake (massasauga, Sistrurus). This information was interpreted by some that the Ottawa borrowing was an insult. However, this proto-Algonquian term most likely is ultimately derived from a form *-ātowē meaning simply "speak foreign language", which was later extended in meaning in some Algonquian languages to refer to the massasauga. Thus, contrary to many accounts, the Ottawa word na·towe·ssiwak never equated the Sioux with snakes.
Further Divisions included: Dhegiha, Chiwere, Mandan, and Hidatsa. (see table above) Before the middle of the 17th century, the Santee Sioux lived in the area around Lake Superior, where they gathered wild rice and beans, hunted deer and buffalo, and speared fish from canoes. Prolonged and continual warfare with the Ojibwa drove the Santee into southern and western Minnesota; the Teton and Yankton divisions were forced permanently from Minnesota onto the Great Plains (in present North and South Dakota), where they ceased to carry on their traditional agricultural activity and adopted the Plains way of life, which centred on the nomadic hunting of buffalo and other big game. The Dhegiha Sioux were a group of tribes speaking Siouan languages and living in the Central Plains. The Southern Plains people probably came from the Ohio River Valley around 1500 and included, in the North, the Omaha, Ponca, Osage, and Kansa tribes. The Quapaw were in the South, on the lower Arkansas River. These peoples were both hunters and farmers who grew corn. Tatoos and facial / body painting were common markings of the Plains Warriors and considered protective virtues. It was also used for visual intimidation of enemies. Often the horses were also decorated to reflect his riders' bravery and exploits.
OSAGE The current name probably comes from the French traders' misinterpretation of their name: wazhazhe. They lived in southern Missouri and northern Arkansas where Jaques Marquette encountered them in 1673. The Osage allied themselves with the French against the Fox in 1714. They distinguished themselves so much, that their name became synonymous with "enemy" for many other tribes. In 1802, French traders persuaded them to travel up the Arkansas River and settle in Oklahoma, but they were subjected to a constant stream of other tribes who fleed into Oklahoma by the encroaching Whites. Initailly, they mnoved onto a reservation in Kansas, but settled later in Oklahoma (1870). Numbering 6,200 in 1780, they increased to more than 6,700 by 1985.
PONCA The meaning of their name is unknown. They lived at the junction of the Niobrara and Missouri Rivers in Nebraska. Being descendants of the Omaha, they had a similar way of life. They were conquered by their enemies, the Dakota Sioux and subsequently moved to Oklahoma in 1877. A small group refused to leave their territory and part of it later became a reservation in 1889. Their population was estimated at 800 in 1780. By 1940, there were 401 Ponca in Nebraska and 2,272 in Oklahoma. about the painting: Shoo-de-gá-cha, The Smoke, Chief of the Tribe, 1832
OMAHA Their name means "those who march against the wind." They lived in northeastern Nebraska, on the Missouri River. Their villages consisted of houses maid of soil and/or bark supported by frames. During buffalo hunting season, they lived in tepees, as did other Prairie tribes. They had no large-scale wars with the Whites, but were consistently at war with the Dakota Sioux. They sold their land in 1854 except for one parcel in an area taken from the Winnebago - and this later became their reservation. Numbering 2,800 in 1780, they were 1,300 in 1970.
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DeMallie, Raymond J. (2001). Sioux until 1850. In R. J. DeMallie (Ed.), Handbook of North American Indians: Plains (Vol. 13, Part 2, pp. 718-760). W. C. Sturtevant (Gen. Ed.). Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution. ISBN 0-16-050400-7. Parks, Douglas R.; & Rankin, Robert L. (2001). The Siouan languages. In Handbook of North American Indians: Plains (Vol. 13, Part 1, pp. 94-114). Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution. de Reuse, Willem J. (1987). One hundred years of Lakota linguistics (1887-1987). Kansas Working Papers in Linguistics, 12, 13-42. (Online version: https://kuscholarworks.ku.edu/dspace/handle/1808/509). de Reuse, Willem J. (1990). A supplementary bibliography of Lakota languages and linguistics (1887-1990). Kansas Working Papers in Linguistics, 15 (2), 146-165. (Studies in Native American languages 6). (Online version: https://kuscholarworks.ku.edu/dspace/handle/1808/441). Rood, David S.; & Taylor, Allan R. (1996). Sketch of Lakhota, a Siouan language. In Handbook of North American Indians: Languages (Vol. 17, pp. 440-482). Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution. |
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| To link to this page : http://www.nativeusa.org/dhegiha_sioux.htm | |||||||||||
 LINKS |
Our Languages: Dakota, Nakota, Lakota (Saskatchewan Indian Cultural Centre) http://www.sicc.sk.ca/heritage/sils/ourlanguages/dnl.html The Siouan Languages Bibliography http://puffin.creighton.edu/lakota/siouan_language.html |
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