Miami-Illinois (endonym: , ), also known as Irenwa or Irenwe, is an indigenous Algonquian language spoken in the United States, primarily in Illinois, Missouri, Indiana, western Ohio and adjacent areas along the Mississippi River by the Miami and Wea as well as the tribes of the Illinois Confederation, including the Kaskaskia, Peoria, Tamaroa, and possibly Mitchigamea. The Myaamia (Miami) Nation of Indiana still practice and use their native heritage to teach young and old so they can keep their traditional language alive. Classification Miami-Illinois is an Algonquian language within the larger Algic family. It is usually described as a Central Algonquian language, but that grouping denotes a geographic rather than genetic affiliation. A thorough genetic classification of Central Algonquian languages has not yet been achieved, and so Miami-Illinois' closest relatives have not been conclusively established. Lexically, Miami-Illinois most closely resembles the Sauk-Fox-Kickapoo language; its phonology and morphology, however, are more reminiscent of Ojibwe-Potawatomi-Ottawa. The term Miami-Illinois covers the language varieties spoken by several different groups throughout history. Illinois denotes specifically the language common to the Illinois Confederation described in 17th- and 18th-century French missionary sources, and the subsequent dialect of the consolidated Peoria tribe; Miami denotes the precontact dialects of the Miami, Wea, and Piankeshaw indigenous to Indiana. Due to the low quality of many records and the complex post-contact history of the groups concerned, the dialectology of Miami-Illinois is difficult to reconstruct for any historical period, but by the end of the 19th century dialectal diversity was minimal, being limited to a modest three-way division between Peoria, Miami proper, and Wea. History and documentation The history of the Miami-Illinois language prior to revitalization can be divided into three periods: the Illinois Confederation and early contact, population decline and relocation to Oklahoma in the 19th century, and language loss leading to extinction in the 20th century. The Miami-Illinois of the first period is recorded primarily by French Catholic missionaries in what is now Illinois, beginning with a collection of prayers, instruction, and catechisms written by Claude-Jean Allouez (possibly with Sébastien Rale's assistance) in Kaskaskia in the late 17th century. A much more extensive document – an Illinois-French dictionary of nearly 600 pages and 20,000 entries – was compiled by Jacques Gravier in the early 18th century. Based on an analysis of its handwriting, it appears to have been transcribed by his assistant, Jacques Largillier. Gravier's original dictionary is held by