Editing Muskogean languages (section)

===Broader relationships===
====Possible Muskogean languages====
Several sparsely attested languages have been claimed to be Muskogean languages. George Broadwell suggested that the languages of the [[Yamasee]] and [[Guale]] were Muskogean.<ref name="Campbell149">Campbell 1997, p. 149</ref><ref>Broadwell 1992, pp. 41–42, fn. 2</ref> However, William Sturtevant argued that the "Yamasee" and "Guale" data were Muscogee and that the language(s) spoken by the Yamasee and Guale people remain unknown.<ref>Sturtevant 1994, referenced in Campbell 1997, p. 149</ref> It is possible that the Yamasee were an amalgamation of several different ethnic groups and did not speak a single language. Chester B. DePratter describes the Yamasee as consisting mainly of speakers of Hitchiti and Guale.<ref>{{NRHP url|id=64500575|title=Dr. Chester B. DePratter, "The Foundation, Occupation, and Abandonment of Yamasee Indian Towns in the South Carolina Lowcountry, 1684–1715"}}, National Register Multiple Property Submission</ref> The historian Steven Oatis also describes the Yamasee as an ethnically mixed group that included people from Muskogean-speaking regions, such as the early colonial-era native towns of ''Hitchiti'', ''Coweta'', and ''Cussita''.<ref>{{cite book |last= Oatis |first= Steven J. |title= A Colonial Complex: South Carolina's Frontiers in the Era of the Yamasee War, 1680–1730 |year= 2004 |publisher= University of Nebraska Press |isbn= 0-8032-3575-5}}</ref>

The [[Amacano people|Amacano]], [[Chacato]], [[Chine people|Chine]], Pacara, and [[Pensacola people|Pensacola]] people, who lived along the Gulf Coast of Florida from the [[Big Bend Coast]] to [[Pensacola Bay]], are reported to have spoken the same Muskogean language, which may have been closely related to Choctaw.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Hann |first=John H. |title=The Native American World Beyond Apalachee |publisher=University Press of Florida |year=2006 |isbn=9-780-8130-2982-5 |pages=11, 20–21, 24, 43}}</ref><ref>Milanich:95, 96</ref><ref>Coker:6</ref><ref>Swanton:136</ref>

Sparse evidence indicates that a Muskogean language was spoken by at least some of the people of the paramount chiefdom of [[Cofitachequi]] in northeastern [[South Carolina]]. If so, that would be the most eastern outpost of Muskogean. The people of Cofitichequi were probably absorbed by nearby [[Siouan]] and [[Iroquoian]] speakers in the late 17th century.<ref>Hudson, Charles ''The Juan Pardo Expeditions'' Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1990, pp. 68–73, 75</ref>

A vocabulary of the [[Houma Tribe|Houma]] may be another underdocumented Western Muskogean language or a version of [[Mobilian Jargon]], a pidgin based on Western Muskogean.

====Gulf====
{{main|Gulf languages}}
The best-known connection proposed between Muskogean and other languages is [[Mary Haas]]' [[Gulf languages|Gulf hypothesis]], in which she conceived of a macrofamily comprising Muskogean and a number of [[language isolate]]s of the southeastern US: [[Atakapa language|Atakapa]], [[Chitimacha language|Chitimacha]], [[Tunica language|Tunica]], and [[Natchez language|Natchez]]. While well-known, the Gulf grouping is now generally rejected by historical linguists.<ref name="Campbell149" /><ref>Campbell 1997, pp. 305–09</ref> Some Muskogean scholars continue to believe that Muskogean is related to Natchez.<ref>Campbell 1997, p. 305</ref>