page_title: Native American cultures in the United States
section_title: Language
hierarchical_section_title: Native American cultures in the United States / Language
caption_attribution_description: Early Indian Languages of the USA
context_page_description: Native American cultures across the United States are notable for their wide variety and diversity of lifestyles, regalia, art forms and beliefs. The culture of indigenous North America is usually defined by the concept of the Pre-Columbian culture area, namely a geographical region where shared cultural traits occur. The northwest culture area, for example shared common traits such as salmon fishing, woodworking, large villages or towns and a hierarchical social structure.
  Though cultural features, language, clothing, and customs vary enormously from one tribe to another, there are certain elements which are encountered frequently and shared by many tribes. Early European American scholars described the Native Americans as having a society dominated by clans.
  European colonization of the Americas had a major impact on Native American culture through what is known as the Columbian exchange. The Columbian exchange, also known as the Columbian interchange, was the widespread transfer of plants, animals, culture, human populations, technology, and ideas between the Americas and the Old World in the 15th and 16th centuries, following Christopher Columbus's 1492 voyage.
context_section_description: There are approximately 296 spoken (or formerly spoken) indigenous languages north of Mexico, 269 of which are grouped into 29 families.
  The major ethno-linguistic phyla are:
  Na-Dene languages,
  Iroquoian languages,
  Caddoan languages
  Algonquian languages
  Algic languages,
  Siouan–Catawban languages,
  Uto-Aztecan languages,
  Salishan languages,
  Tanoan languages
  Eskimo–Aleut (Alaska)
  The Na-Dené, Algic, and Uto-Aztecan families are the largest in terms of number of languages. Uto-Aztecan has the most speakers (1.95 million) if the languages in Mexico are considered (mostly due to 1.5 million speakers of Nahuatl); Na-Dené comes in second with approximately 200,000 speakers (nearly 180,000 of these are speakers of Navajo), and Algic in third with about 180,000 speakers (mainly Cree and Ojibwe). Na-Dené and Algic have the widest geographic distributions: Algic currently spans from northeastern Canada across much of the continent down to northeastern Mexico (due to later migrations of the Kickapoo) with two outliers in California (Yurok and Wiyot). The remaining 27 languages are either isolates or unclassified), such as Penutian languages, Hokan, Gulf languages and others.
caption: Early indigenous languages in the U.S.
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