•
Iroquoian • Northern Iroquoian • (Lake Iroquoian) • Iroquois Proper (Five Nations) •
Seneca (severely endangered) •
Cayuga (severely endangered) •
Onondaga (severely endangered) •
Susquehannock or Conestoga • Mohawk–Oneida •
Oneida (severely endangered) •
Mohawk (definitely endangered) • Huronian •
Wendat/Wyandot (Huron) •
Petun (Tobacco) • Tuscarora–Nottoway •
Tuscarora •
Meherrin •
Nottoway • Unclassified •
Wenrohronon or Wenro •
Neutral •
Erie •
Laurentian •
Scahentoarrhonon • Southern Iroquoian/
Cherokee • South Carolina-Georgia dialect ( Lower dialect) • North Carolina dialect ( Middle or Kituwah dialect) (severely endangered) • Oklahoma dialect ( Overhill or Western dialect) (definitely endangered) '''''' — language extinct/dormant Evidence is emerging that what has been called the
Laurentian language appears to be more than one dialect or language. Ethnographic and linguistic field work with the Wyandot tribal elders (
Barbeau 1960) yielded enough documentation for scholars to characterize and classify the Wyandot and Petun languages. The languages of the tribes that constituted the tiny
Wenrohronon, the powerful Conestoga Confederacy and the confederations of the
Neutral Nation and the
Erie Nation are very poorly documented in print. The
Wyandot referred to the Neutral people as
Atiwandaronk, meaning 'they who understand the language'. The Wenro and Neutral are historically grouped together, and geographically the Wenro's range on the eastern end of Lake Erie placed them between the larger confederations. To the east of the Wenro, beyond the
Genesee Gorge, were the lands of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. To the southeast, beyond the headwaters of the
Allegheny River, lay the Conestoga (Susquehannock). The Conestoga Confederacy and Erie were militarily powerful and respected by neighboring tribes. By 1660 all of these peoples but the Conestoga Confederacy and the Haudenosaunee Confederacy were defeated and scattered, migrating to form new tribes or adopted into others. The Iroquoian peoples had a practice of adopting valiant enemies into the tribe; they also adopted captive women and children to replace members who had died. The group known as the
Meherrin were neighbors to the Tuscarora and the Nottoway (
Binford 1967) in the American South. They are believed to have spoken an Iroquoian language but documentation is lacking. ==External relationships==