Native Languages of the Americas: Illinois-Miami (Maumee, Myamia, Twightwee)
Language: Miami and Illinois are dialects of the same Algonquian
language, spoken in Indiana and later Oklahoma. Though no native speakers of the language
remain, language revival efforts are ongoing, and children from both the Miami and
Peoria nations are learning to speak their ancestral language again. Miami-Illinois is a polysynthetic language with complex verb morphology and fairly
free word order.
People: Though the Illinois and Miami Indians speak the same language and are historical allies, they have always considered themselves
politically distinct. Today the Miami (Maumee or Myaamia, also called Twightwee or Twatwa by some of their
neighbors) live in two groups, one of about 2000 Miami in Oklahoma and one of about 6000 in Indiana.
These two groups consider themselves the same people, but only the Oklahoma tribe is recognized by the
American government. There are also about 1000 Illinois Indians (primarily Peoria and Kaskaskia) living in Oklahoma today.
History: The Miami and Illinois Indians were very close relatives with nearly identical
culture and language, but distinct political affiliation. Both nations were really loose
confederations of several independent tribes, so perhaps there was some political rift which
caused some tribes to group together as Miami and some as Illini. The Illini tribe was the more
powerful of the two, until an Illinois man murdered the controversial but much-loved
Chief Pontiac of the Ottawa Tribe;
then almost every tribe of the central US except their kin the Miami turned on the Illini in a vengeful war
that left only a few hundred survivors, mostly women and children. The Miami, meanwhile, were trying to
fight off attempts by the young United States to drive them from their Ohio lands. With the alliance of the
Shawnee and the generalship of the formidable Miami
chief Little Turtle, they won two decisive victories against the Americans, but were eventually
defeated. Some of the survivors were relocated to Oklahoma, while others remained in Indiana but were stripped
of their treaty rights. The Indiana Miami remain unrecognized by the government (and dispossessed of their