Many people don’t realize just how many Indigenous languages are/were spoken in the United States both prior to colonization and afterwards. Currently, there are 176 Indigenous languages spoken in the United States, however, there were certainly more languages spoken in the past.

This doesn’t even include the creole languages and dialects created by communities made by Black enslaved people/maroon communities. In 1929, speaking about Indigenous languages in the United States, linguist Edward Sapir stated,

“Few people realize that within the confines of the United States there is spoken today a far greater variety of languages ... than in the whole of Europe. We may go further. We may say, quite literally and safely, that in the state of California alone there are greater and more”

“numerous linguistic extremes than can be illustrated in all the length and breadth of Europe.” There are very likely even more Indigenous languages being spoken in the United States today, as many immigrants/migrants from Latin America are Indigenous and speak Indigenous

languages here. Many people may think of Europe as the pinnacle of “culture,” and “society,” but its can be truly stunning to realize just how much culture and diversity existed in the Americas pre-European contact and how much diversity still exists within Indigenous communities

today. Native Americans are not and have never been a monolith. Our nations/peoples are all extremely diverse and there’s probably no way for any one person to fully know or understand all of Native American history across all tribes, language groups, or ethnic groups.