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Native Languages of the Americas:
Shawnee (Shawano, Savannah, Sewanee)

Language: Shawnee is an Algonquian language spoken by 200 people in Oklahoma. It is most closely related to the Sauk-Fox and Kickapoo languages. Shawnee is a polysynthetic language with complex verb morphology and fairly free word order.

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People: Originally from the Ohio-Pennsylvania area, the Shawnee tribe was migratory, with villages scattered from Illinois to New York state and as far south as Georgia. They were rounded up and sent to Oklahoma by the US government in the nineteenth century, where 14,000 Shawnee Indians still live today.

History: Kinfolk of the Lenape (whom they addressed as "grandfather"), the Shawnee tribe frequently moved from place to place, both willingly and under duress from Iroquois and colonial assailants. In the early 1800's, the Shawnee leader Tecumseh and his brother Tenskwatawa tried to unite the eastern tribes under the banner of pan-Indian unity. When this alliance was broken up by the Americans, the Shawnees were forcibly relocated to Oklahoma. They still live there today, in three distinct communities.

Shawnee Language Resources

Shawnee language samples, articles, and indexed links.

Shawnee Culture and History Directory

Related links about the Shawnee tribe past and present.

Shawnee Indians Fact Sheet

Our answers to frequently asked questions about the Shawnee Indians, their language and culture.

Shawnee Legends

Introduction to Shawnee Indian mythology.

Shawnee Language Resources

Our Online Shawnee Language Materials

Shawnee Vocabulary:
List of vocabulary words in Shawnee, with comparison to words in other Algonquian languages.

Shawnee Pronunciation Guide:
How to pronounce Shawnee Indian words.

Shawnee Animal Words:
Picture glossary of animal words in the Shawnee language.

Shawnee Body Parts:
Online and printable worksheets showing parts of the body in Shawnee.

Shawnee Colors:
Worksheet showing Shawnee color words.

Shawnee Animate Nouns:
Lesson on Shawnee animate and inanimate nouns.

Shawnee Possession:
Lesson on Shawnee possessive prefixes.

Shawnee Dictionaries and Language Books for Sale
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Cummings' Vocabulary of Shawnee

Denny's Vocabulary of Shawnee

Ridout's Vocabulary of Shawnee:
Three Shawnee dictionaries for sale.

American Indian Dictionaries:
Shawnee and other Native American dictionaries.

Shawnee Language Lessons and Linguistic Descriptions

Shawnee Language:
Shawnee pronunciation, orthography, and wordlists.

Shawnee Speak:
Numbers, sentences, and the Lord's Prayer in Shawnee.

Shawnee Language, Alphabet and Pronunciation:
Phonological inventory of Shawnee, with a sample text.

Shawnee Indian Language

Shawnee Orthography:
Scanned-in Shawnee language materials from the Rosetta Project.

Vocabularies of the Shawanoese and Wyandott Languages:
Shawnee and Wyandot wordlists, compiled and introduced by a 19th century Indian advocate.

Shawnee Prayers:
Shawnee translations of Christian prayers.

House of Languages: Shawnee:
Information about Shawnee language usage.

Shawnee:
Demographic information about Shawnee from the Ethnologue of Languages.

Shawnee Language Tree:
Theories about Shawnee's language relationships compiled by Linguist List.

Shawnee Language Structures:
Shawnee linguistic profile and academic bibliography.

Hello Oklahoma: Shawnee Tribe:
Shawnee language greeting.

Shawnee Proper Names

Shawnee Names:
Compendium of hundreds of 18th-century Shawnee Indian names.

Indian Animal Names:
Offering names for dogs and horses in Native American languages (including Shawnee).

Additional Resources, Links, and References

  La Lengua Shawnee:
  Article on the Shawnee language in Spanish. With a language map.
  Shawnee Language:
  Shawnee links.
Learning Shawnee:
Bibliography of Shawnee language learning resources.

Learn more about the Shawnee Indian tribe
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Native Languages of the Americas:Shawnee (Shawano, Savannah, Sewanee)