Hitchiti language
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| (Extinct as a tribe) | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Georgia, United States | |
| Languages | |
| Hitchiti | |
| Religion | |
| Traditional tribal religion | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Muscogee, Mikasuki, Seminole |
| Regions with significant populations |
|---|
The Hitchiti were an indigenous tribe formerly residing chiefly in a town of the same name on the east bank of the Chattahoochee River, four miles below Chiaha, in western present-day Georgia. The natives possessed a narrow strip of good land bordering on the river. The Hitchiti had a reputation of being honest and industrious. Their autonym was possibly Atcik-hata, while the Coushatta knew them as the At-pasha-shliha, "mean people".
The Hitchiti language, one of the many languages spoken by the Muscogee tribe, was spoken in Georgia and Florida during the Colonial Period by tribes including the Hitchiti, Chiaha, Oconee, Sawokli, Apalochicola, and Miccosukee. Based on the amount of place names derived from the language, scholars believe it could have spread over a much larger area than Georgia and Florida during colonial times.
It was part of the Muskogean language family; it is considered a dialect of the Mikasuki language with which it was mutually intelligible. The Hitchiti and the Mikasuki tribes were both part of the loose Creek confederacy. The Mikasuki language was historically one of the major languages of the Seminole people and is still spoken by many Florida Seminoles and Miccosukees, but it is extinct among the Oklahoma Seminole.
Like the Creeks, the Hitchiti had an ancient "female" dialect. The dialect was still remembered and sometimes spoken by the older people, which used to be the language of the males as well. Their language with the "female" dialect was also known as the ancient language.
The tables below are the sounds of the Hitchiti language:
Vowels
Consonants
The Hitchiti are often associated with a location in the present-day Chattahoochee County, but at an earlier period were on the lower course of the Ocmulgee River. Early English maps show their town on the site of present-day Macon. After 1715 they moved to Henry County, Alabama, en route to their most well-known location of Chattahoochee. By 1839, they had all been relocated to Native American reservations in Oklahoma, where they gradually merged with the rest of the Native Americans of the Creek Confederacy.
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