page_title: Sioux language
section_title: Regional variation
hierarchical_section_title: Sioux language / Regional variation
caption_attribution_description: English: Page from Dictionary of the Sioux Language, unidentified publisher in Fort Laramie, Dakota, 1866. Interior page gives alternate title Lacotah. By Joseph Keyes Hyer (d. 1882) and William Sylvanus Starring (d. 1889). From a personal copy given by Starring to Louis Agassiz. 1273.51, Houghton Library, Harvard University
context_page_description: Sioux is a Siouan language spoken by over 30,000 Sioux in the United States and Canada, making it the fifth most spoken indigenous language in the United States or Canada, behind Navajo, Cree, Inuit languages and Ojibwe.
  Since 2019, "the language of the Great Sioux Nation, comprised of three dialects, Dakota, Lakota, and Nakota" is the official indigenous language of South Dakota.
context_section_description: Sioux has three major regional varieties, with other sub-varieties:
  Lakota (AKA Lakȟóta, Teton, Teton Sioux)
  Western Dakota (AKA Yankton-Yanktonai or Dakȟóta, and erroneously classified, for a very long time, as "Nakota")
  Yankton (Iháŋktȟuŋwaŋ)
  Yanktonai (Iháŋktȟuŋwaŋna)
  Eastern Dakota (AKA Santee-Sisseton or Dakhóta)
  Santee (Isáŋyáthi: Bdewákhathuŋwaŋ, Waȟpékhute)
  Sisseton (Sisíthuŋwaŋ, Waȟpéthuŋwaŋ)
  Yankton-Yanktonai (Western Dakota) stands between Santee-Sisseton (Eastern Dakota) and Lakota within the dialect continuum. It is phonetically closer to Santee-Sisseton but lexically and grammatically, it is much closer to Lakota. For this reason Lakota and Western Dakota are much more mutually intelligible than each is with Eastern Dakota. The assumed extent of mutual intelligibility is usually overestimated by speakers of the language. While Lakota and Yankton-Yanktonai speakers understand each other to a great extent, they each find it difficult to follow  Santee-Sisseton speakers.
  Closely related to the Sioux language are the Assiniboine and Stoney languages, whose speakers use the self-designation term (autonym) Nakhóta or Nakhóda. Speakers of Lakota and Dakota have more difficulty understanding each of the two Nakoda languages (Assiniboine and Stoney).
caption: Page from Dictionary of the Sioux Language, 1866
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