Native to United States Ethnicity Nottoway people | Region Virginia Extinct ca. 1858 | |
Language family Iroquoian
Northern
Lake Iroquoian
Tuscarora–Nottoway
Nottoway ISO 639-3 Either:
ntw – Nottoway
nwy – Nottoway-Meherrin | ||
Nottoway, also called Cheroenhaka, is an extinct Iroquoian language of the Nottoway people, formerly based in present-day Virginia. They are undertaking work for language revival. Nottoway is related to Tuscarora. In the 21st century, two tribes of Nottoway are active in Virginia and officially recognized by the state; other Nottoway descendants live in Wisconsin and Canada, where some of their ancestors fled in the 18th century. The language, however, has been almost entirely lost, known only from a few wordlists jotted down by colonists 200 years ago.
The vocabulary and /or tongue (Dar-sun-ke) of the Cheroenhaka (Nottoway) Indians is a compilation of lists and source materials dating back to March 4th, 1820. Former President Thomas Jefferson’s hand written letter to Peter S. DuPonceau, on July 7, 1820, states that the Cheroenhaka (Nottoway) Indian vocabulary was obtained on March 4th, 1820 from a woman by the name of Edie Turner, styled as their “Queen,” and that he had procured a copy of the vocabulary from John Woods, a former Professor of Mathematics at the College of William and Mary. Jefferson implies in his letter that, at the time the vocabulary was recorded, members of the Cheroenhaka (Nottoway) Indian Tribe, Southampton County Virginia, were still living on 7,000 acres of tribal reservation land west of the Nottoway River and two miles from Jerusalem [Courtland…WDB].