Miami-Illinois language

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Native toIllinois, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Ohio, Oklahoma
Extinctmid-20th century[1]
Revivala small number of users in revival program[2]
Language codes
ISO 639-3mia

Miami-Illinois (Myaamia [mjɑːmia]) is an indigenous Algonquian language formerly[clarification needed] spoken in the United States, primarily in Illinois, Missouri, Indiana, western Ohio and adjacent areas along the Mississippi River by the Miami and Wea as well as the tribes of the Illinois Confederation, including the Kaskaskia, Peoria, Tamaroa, and Mitchigamea.

Since the 1990s, the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma has worked to revive it in a joint project with Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.


Miami-Illinois is an Algonquian language within the larger Algic family. The name "Miami-Illinois" is a cover term for a cluster of highly similar dialects, the primary ones being Miami proper, Peoria, Wea, Piankeshaw, and, in the older Jesuit records, Illinois. About half of the surviving several hundred speakers were displaced in the 19th century from their territories, eventually settling in northeastern Oklahoma as the Miami and the Peoria. The remainder of the Miami stayed behind in northern Indiana.


Gravier's dictionary contains nearly 600 pages and 20,000 entries. It is the "most extensive of several manuscripts" which French missionaries made of the Illinois languages.[4] The original document is held by Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. During the 18th and 19th centuries, the Illinois were subject to extermination by hostile tribes, as well as encroachment by European settlers. The French abandoned the Kaskaskia mission.

Eventually the surviving Illinois speakers went to the Indian Territory, later Oklahoma where the group became known as the Peoria. All of the Wea and Piankashaw were also forcibly relocated to Oklahoma, where they merged with the Peoria. About half the Miami proper remained in historic territory of present-day Indiana, the other half also being relocated to Oklahoma, eventually settling next to the Peoria. Because of the decline among the number of Miami-Illinois speakers, the language was not studied as extensively as many other Algonquian languages. It was not until 2002 that the manuscript was edited and published, by Carl Masthay.[4]


There is an extensive amount of data on the Miami-Illinois language. The problem with much of the data collected is that little of it was collected by trained phonologists and thus much of it is incomplete or incorrect. David Costa has written extensively on this language, compiling much of this data and correcting it in his book The Miami-Illinois Language.


The consonants of the Miami-Illinois language are typical to the "Central Algonquian" languages. It contains the voiceless stops and affricate p, t, k, tʃ; voiceless fricatives s, ʃ, h; nasals and liquids m, n, l; and the semivowels w, y. The linguist David Costa (2003) notes that "the original Proto-Algonquian consonants *p, *t, *k, * tʃ, *s, *ʃ, *h, *m, *n, *w, *j remain largely unchanged." [5]

Labial Alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal
Stop p t k ʔ
Fricative s ʃ h
Nasal m n
Approximant w l j

Alternations between /s/ and /ʃ/[edit]

There is a small number of words in the Miami-Illinois language that have alternations between /s/ and /ʃ/ in their pronunciations. There are also opposite alternations where /ʃ/ occurs instead of /s/. Examples of both of these alternations seem to most prominently show themselves before the vowel /i/. Costa (2003) notes these "examples of words showing /ʃ/ for expected /s/ follow: /apeehʃia/, /teekweeʃita/, and /neehʃiaani/" [6]


Miami-Illinois has four short vowels, /i e a o/ and four long vowels, /iː eː aː oː/. Costa (2003) notes that "/a/ is a low non-front vowel however it can also be pronounced as a [ʌ] by some speakers. /o/ is a back round vowel ranging from [o] through [ʊ] to [u]. /e/ is a non-high front vowel ranging from [æ] through [ɛ] to [e]. Finally, /i/ is a high front vowel ranging from [ɪ] to [i]." These differences can occur from speaker to speaker and also from word to word.[6]

Strong Syllable Rule[edit]


Vowel Devoicing Rule[edit]

One important rule for the phonology of Miami-Illinois is called the "Vowel Devoicing Rule." In Miami-Illinois the weak vowels are devoiced any time they occur before a preaspirate. If a short vowel occurs before a preaspirate it will be devoiced if it follows a long vowel. This will also happen if it occurs in an odd-numbered syllable. However, if the vowel is in a strong syllable (or an even-numbered syllable) this rule does not apply. As Costa (2003) states it, "a vowel in an original second syllable can be devoiced only if a long vowel precedes it, thus rendering the vowel odd-numbered for the syllable count." [6]


Aside from the "Strong Syllable Rule" (Costa, 2003), there is separate system of accenting in the Miami-Illinois language. In this rule, the syllable count begins at the end of the word and goes backwards towards the start of it (unlike the Strong Syllable Rule, which begins at the beginning of the word and goes forwards). Vowels in both weak and strong syllable can be accented. It is most common for words in this language to take accents on their penultimate syllables, though if a weak syllable is subject to devoicing, it can not receive an accent. This shows that the devoicing rule comes before the accent rule.[6]

Language revitalization[edit]

Since the mid-1990s, the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma has embarked on a language revitalization program. Many Miami members have described the language as "sleeping" rather than "extinct" since it was not irretrievably lost.[7]


Some language and culture resources include

  • a children's book of Miami language and culture;
  • a compilation of traditional stories from the Miami and Peoria tribes, recorded in the early 20th century when the language's last native speakers were alive.[12]


Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art, Indianapolis, Indiana, USA; oonseentia is Myaamia for the Liriodendron tulipifera, the "tulip tree" or "yellow poplar"


  2. ^ "How the Miami Tribe got its language back". Public Radio International.
  3. ^ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Miami". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.

Further reading[edit]

  • Leonard, Wesley Y. (September 2012). "Reframing language reclamation programmes for everybody's empowerment". Gender and Language, Special Issue: Gender and Endangered Languages. 6 (2): 339–367. doi:10.1558/genl.v6i2.339. Pdf. The paper uses the context of Miami language reclamation programmes to examine how gender roles are manifested, understood and promoted.

External links[edit]