“The Language Thing,” everyone asks about the Language Thing. It is time to give the definitive answer from history. As traders, the Tiscamogie or Chickamauga spoke numerous languages and trade languages because we had to speak them so we could survive. The most common language on the continent prior to the mid-1500s was Native American Sign Language. There were variations from region to region, but they were minor for the most part and almost all could be understood.
Here is where history plays an important role in the “Language Thing.” Our Mound Building Culture extends across two to three millennia. From Central America (Mesoamerica) to the Great Lakes region and from the Appalachians to the Rockies. This part of North America is called the Mississippi River Bottoms because it is the natural drainage system between the two mountain ranges. Now, remember there are thousands of different Tribes and people groups during those two to three thousand years who all spoke different languages and transitioned between languages depending on who they were dealing with for trade. Language was important but it was not the most important identifying factor to who spoke the language.
In the Southeastern Woodlands between 600 and 1000 AD (CE) the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex Religion (SCCR) languages and dialects would have been the most common because it was the language of the Culture, Religion, and Government. Around 1100, (Linear Timelines are always rough in that they are generalizations prior to the 1500s) as the Mounds began to play a less dominant role in the lives of tribes, their languages became more regionalized. The languages began to be spoken in Tribal Regions by different Tribes of people and then the Tribal languages began to become more regionalized; they became associated with a Region and a Tribe.
This takes us back to the need for Native American Sign Language especially for Tribes which traded to expand their quality of life. Prior to Contact, Gulf Coast and East Coast items were appearing up and down the Mississippi River Bottoms as trade items. Animal hides and furs were trade items as well as shells, beads and different herbal medicines. Trade led to the necessity of Tribes becoming semi to somewhat fluent in the languages of other trade partners. It is the desire to trade which assisted in evolving Tribal Languages to Regional Languages and back. New words and dialects were commonplace throughout the Mississippian era to Contact.
Now, let us focus on the Tiscamogie/Chickamauga language phases and dialects. We know from traditional teachings that the Tisca spoke a language called Erate or Arate which is pronounced “a” as in apple or “e” as in bed then “rot” with an “ay” sound at the end as in hay. According to the South Carolina Colonial Records, Erate or Arate means hill or mountain. Because of our close proximity to other Mound Building Cultures, the Choctaw and Creek, we also adopted the Mobillian Trade Language to Erate and spoke a broken form of Choctaw which is still extremely close to the modern Choctaw language.
Being on the Tennessee River also allowed us to travel to the Ohio River valley and the Mississippi River valley and lean new languages and dialects. We traded with most of the Tribes along the Ohio River and the Kaskaskia region along the Mississippi River. We also traded as far up the Tennessee tributaries as the Holston and Clinch Rivers at the North Carolina and Virginia border with Tennessee. It was in this region of the world that we began to pick up hints of the Cherokee Trade Language in the late 1670s. It was not until the 1690s and early 1700s that the Cherokee migrated far enough South to enter the Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee border region for their Iroquoian dialect called the “Strange Language” to began to percolate into the northern most part of the Southeast Woodlands. Their “Cherokee Trade Language” began to make an impact on the world so much that by the 1720s the Chickamauga began to use an Erate/Cherokee Trade Language Dialect which later becomes known as the Southern Cherokee Dialect which the Lower Town Chickamauga continued to speak well into the late 1900s when many of the last of the remaining fluent speakers began to succumb to age.
So when you ask about the Language of the Chickamauga/Tiscamogie you have to first begin with the question of what time frame, then what region, then which language. What makes it all even more confusing is that our dialects of those languages were also influenced greatly by our trading with the French and Spanish and our use of some of their words and derivatives of their words which we changed to fit our own needs for the day.
Here is what I can say with certainty today. First, we spoke the Native American Sign Language. It is the most simple and easiest to learn. There are dozens of books and online lessons to help people learn this form of communication. Second, if you want to learn a spoken language, learn the Mobillian Trade Language/Choctaw language. The Mobillian Trade Language and the Choctaw language are almost identical over 90% of the same words. The Choctaw Nation offers a free online course which, since it is free it is the best way to learn a spoken language. All you do is sign up for the course and it is self-paced and you learn as your take online lessons. Finally, the Southern Dialect of Cherokee is a tough language to get information about because it is an almost dead language with less than 50 fluent speakers left in the world. One of our Chiefs is trying to put together some basics of the Dialect, so learning it right now is slow and tedious.
The most important thing to remember about the Tiscamogie/Chickamauga is that we were never static with a single language because we were traders and we intermarried with anyone and everyone in our known world. We have a bright and colorful history to be proud of and we cannot get hung up on trying to have a single language because our people spoke and signed over a dozen different languages from the 1600s to the 1850s.