Alright, so I wanted to figure out the “native language of Oklahoma.” Sounds simple enough, right? Well, it turned out to be a bit more of a rabbit hole than I expected.
Digging In
First, I fired up my search engine. I mean, that’s where everyone starts, yeah? I just typed in “native language of Oklahoma” and hit enter.
The initial results were a bit all over the place. I saw some mentions of Cherokee, which I kinda expected, but then there were a whole bunch of other names I didn’t recognize.
So, I started clicking through some of the results. Mostly informational websites, some historical societies, that kind of thing. I noticed a lot of them talked about how Oklahoma was originally “Indian Territory,” and that a ton of different tribes were moved there.
Getting Organized
It was getting confusing, so I decided to get a little more organized. I opened up a simple text document and started jotting down the names of all the tribes and languages I was finding.
- Cherokee
- Muscogee (Creek)
- Choctaw
- Chickasaw
- …and a whole bunch more!
Man, the list just kept growing! It became pretty clear that there wasn’t just one native language of Oklahoma. It was more like a whole tapestry of languages, reflecting the diverse history of the tribes that call the state home.
Putting It All Together
I was finding info all over the different corners, that have been there for who-knows-how-long, before Oklahoma was even a state.
It was a good reminder that sometimes the easy questions don’t have easy answers. And, honestly, it made me want to learn even more about the history of Oklahoma and the people who were there first.
