Nakota

Nakota (or Nakoda or Nakona) is the endonym used by those native peoples of North America who usually go by the name of Assiniboine (or Hohe), in the United States, and of Stoney, in Canada. The Assiniboine branched off from the Great Sioux Nation (aka the Oceti Sakowin) long ago and moved further west from the original territory in the woodlands of what is now Minnesota into the northern and northwestern regions of Montana and North Dakota in the United States, and Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta in Canada. In each of the Western Siouan language dialects, nakota, dakota and lakota all mean "friend". Historically, the tribes belonging to the Sioux nation known as the Oceti Sakowin (Seven Council Fires) have generally been classified into three large regional groups: Lakota (Thítȟuŋwaŋ; anglicized as Teton), who form the westernmost group; Eastern Dakota (Isáŋyathi; anglicized as Santee), consisting of the four bands: Mdewakanton, Sisseton, Wahpeton, Wahpekute; Western Dakota, collectively known as Wičhíyena, the two central tribes of the Yankton and the Yanktonai. The Assiniboine separated from the Yankton-Yanktonai grouping around 1640. All tribes of Sioux use the term Dakóta, or Lakóta, to designate those who speak one of the Dakota/Lakota dialects, except the Assiniboine. The latter, however, include themselves under the term (Nakóta). For a long time, very few scholars criticized this classification. Among the first was the Yankton/Lakota scholar Ella Deloria. In 1978, Douglas R. Parks, A. Wesley Jones, David S. Rood, and Raymond J. DeMallie engaged in systematic linguistic research at the Sioux and Assiniboine reservations to establish the precise dialectology of the Sioux language. They ascertained that both the Santee and the Yankton/Yanktonai referred (and refer) to themselves by the autonym Dakota. The name of Nakota (or Nakoda) was (and is) exclusive usage of the Assiniboine and of their Canadian relatives, the Stoney. The subsequent academic literature, however, especially if it is not produced by linguistic specialists, has seldom reflected Parks and DeMallie's work.