Native American languages Native Americans Native American names

Nakota

"Nakota" is a tribal name used by several Siouan tribes of the Northern Plains:

1) The Stoney tribe of Alberta and Saskatchewan. (Most Stoney people spell and pronounce this name Nakoda instead.)

2) The Assiniboine tribe of Saskatchewan and Montana.

3) The Yankton and Yanktonai people of South Dakota. Actually the Yankton and Yanktonai people do not use "Nakota" to refer to themselves; they usually call themselves Yankton and Yanktonai Sioux, and in their own language the tribal name is pronounced Dakota, not Nakota. Only historians and anthropologists use "Nakota" to refer to the Yankton or Yanktonai. Presumably at some point in the past there must have been some Yankton and Yanktonai speakers who pronounced "Dakota" as "Nakota," thus causing them to be recorded in history books this way. It could also have been a case of mistaken identity on the part of outsiders. The Yankton and Yanktonai dialects of Dakota are closer to the Stoney and Assiniboine language than other Dakota dialects, so Stoney and Assiniboine people might have been confused for Yankton or Yanktonai people.

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Here are links to our webpages about the Nakota tribe and language:

Assiniboine language
Stoney language
Sioux language
Assiniboine tribe
Sioux tribes
Siouan languages
Plains Indian tribes

Here are a few good books about the Nakotas:
Land of Nakoda: The Story of the Assiniboine Indians
The History of the Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes of the Fort Peck Indian Reservation
Assiniboine Memories; Legends of the Nakota People

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