Family of about eight North American Indian languages spoken or formerly spoken across much of what is now the southeastern U.S. In the 16th century Koasati (Coushatta) and Alabama were probably spoken in what is now northern Alabama, Creek (Muskogee) and Hitchiti in Alabama and Georgia, and Apalachee in the Florida Panhandle.
To the west were Chickasaw in northern Mississippi and western Tennessee and Choctaw in central Mississippi. By the mid-19th century Apalachee was long extinct, and the forced removals of the 1830s (see Trail of Tears ) had pushed most of the remaining Muskogean-speakers either west of the Mississippi or into Florida, where the Seminole continue to speak a dialect of Creek in central Florida and Mikasuki (Miccosukee) in the Everglades. The extant Muskogean languages continue to be spoken, at least by adults, with Choctaw (in Oklahoma and Mississippi) having the most speakers.