Indigenous languages of the Americas

From NativeWiki

Many of the subcategories group these languages into geographic culture areas.

Languages that are within the same culture area are not necessarily related genetically (e.g. Chiricahua Apache is a language of the Southwest but it is not related to Hopi, another language of the Southwest. However, Chiricahua is related to Dena’ina, a language of the Subarctic spoken in Alaska).

South America

For South America, the subcategories follow Terrence Kaufman's "geolinguistic regions":

• Northwest (includes southern Central America)
• Northeastern Brazil
• Eastern Brazil
• Amazonia
  • Northern Amazonia
  • Central Amazonia
  • Western Amazonia (Kaufman actually has 2 regions here: Western Amazonia I & II)
• the Foothills (or Montaña)
  • Northern Foothills
  • Southern Foothills
• Andes
• The Cone
• The Chaco

Central America

Central America is mostly Mesoamerica. However, parts of Central America are under the North American Southwest and the South American Northwest.

North America

Cultural areas of North America at time of European contact.

The culture areas for North America follow the general received consensus:

• Arctic
• Subarctic
• Northwest Coast
• Plateau
• Great Basin
• California
• Southwest (includes some parts of Mexico)
• Plains (sometimes divided into Plains and Prairie regions)
• Southeast
• Northeastern Woodlands