Five languages belong to the Caddoan language family: Kitsai and Wichita are both extinct. Kitsai went extinct in the 19th century as its members were absorbed into the Wichita tribe. Wichita became extinct in 2016 when the last native speaker of Wichita, Doris McLemore, died. All of the other Caddoan languages are nearly extinct; as of 2007, Caddo is spoken by only 25 people, Pawnee by 10, and Arikara by 10. Caddo and Pawnee are spoken in Oklahoma by small numbers of tribal elders. Arikara is spoken on the Fort Berthold Reservation in North Dakota. Speakers of some of the languages were formerly more widespread; the Caddo, for example, used to live in northeastern Texas, southwestern Arkansas, and northwestern Louisiana, as well as southeastern Oklahoma. The Pawnee formerly lived along the Platte River in what is now Nebraska.
Prehistory
is a controversial method of reconstructing, in broad detail, the history of a language and its relationships. In the case of Proto-Caddoan, it appeared to have divided into two branches, Northern and Southern, more than 3000 years ago. South Caddoan, or Caddo proper, evolved in north-eastern Texas and adjacent Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Louisiana. Other than Caddo, no daughter languages are known, but some unrecorded ones likely existed in the 16th and the 17th centuries. Northern Caddoan evolved into several different languages. The language that became Wichita, with several different dialects, branched off about 2000 years ago. Kitsai separated from the Northern Caddoan stem about 1200 years ago, and Pawnee and Arikara separated 300 to 500 years ago.
External relations
, a language isolate known only from a 275-word list collected in 1804, may be a Caddoan language. The documentation is too scanty to determine with certainty. The Adai lived in Louisiana. The language of the Eyeish or Ais, who lived adjacent to the Caddo, was a distinct language, but was probably related to Caddoan. Some linguists believe that the Caddoan, Iroquoian, and Siouan languages may be connected in a Macro-Siouanlanguage family, but their work is suggestive and the theory remains hypothetical. Similar attempts to find a connection with the Algonquian languages have been inconclusive. There is insufficient evidence for linguists to propose a hypothetical Macro-Algonquian/Iroquoian language family.
