Siouan languages
In the 19th century, Robert Latham suggested that the Siouan languages are related to the Caddoan and Iroquoian languages. In 1931, Louis Allen presented the first list of systematic correspondences between a set of 25 lexical items in Siouan and Iroquoian. In the 1960s and 1970s, Wallace Chafe further explored the link between Siouan and Caddoan languages. In the 1990s, Marianne Mithun compared the morphology and syntax of all the three families. At present, this Macro-Siouan hypothesis is not considered proved, and the similarities between the three families may instead be due to their protolanguages having been part of a sprachbund.
Protohistory of West Virginia
Linguistic and historical records indicate a possible southern origin of Siouan peoples, with migrations over a thousand years ago from North Carolina and Virginia to Ohio. Some peoples continued down the Ohio River to the Mississippi River and up the Missouri River, and others across Ohio to Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota, home of the Dakota. Ohio Valley Siouan (Southeastern Siouan) is a group of related Siouan languages, which included the Ofo language, Biloxi language, and the Tutelo language. The Tutelo language was a group of mutually intelligible dialects spoken by the Tutelo, Monacan, Manahoac and Nahyssan confederacies, and Occaneechi in what is now Virginia and West Virginia.