Editing Cree language (section)

== Origin and diffusion ==
Cree is believed to have begun as a dialect of the [[Proto-Algonquian language]] spoken between 2,500 and 3,000 years ago in the [[Urheimat|original Algonquian homeland]], an undetermined area thought to be near the Great Lakes. The speakers of the proto-Cree language are thought to have moved north, and diverged rather quickly into two different groups on each side of [[James Bay]]. The eastern group then began to diverge into separate dialects, whereas the western grouping probably broke into distinct dialects much later.<ref>Rhodes and Todd, "Subarctic Algonquian Languages" in ''Handbook of North American Indians: Subarctic'', p. 60</ref> After this point it is very difficult to make definite statements about how different groups emerged and moved around, because there are no written works in the languages to compare, and descriptions by Europeans are not systematic; as well, Algonquian people have a tradition of bilingualism and even of outright adopting a new language from neighbours.<ref>Rhodes and Todd, 60–61</ref>

A traditional view among 20th-century anthropologists and historians of the [[fur trade]] posits that the Western Woods Cree and the [[Plains Cree language|Plains Cree]] (and therefore their dialects) did not diverge from other Cree peoples before 1670, when the Cree expanded out of their homeland near James Bay because of access to European firearms. By contrast, James Smith of the [[Museum of the American Indian]] stated, in 1987, that the weight of archeological and linguistic evidence puts the Cree as far west as the [[Peace River Region]] of Alberta before European contact.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Smith |first1=James G. E. |title=the Western Woods Cree: anthropological myth and historical reality |journal=American Ethnologist |date=August 1987 |volume=14 |issue=3 |pages=434–448 |doi=10.1525/ae.1987.14.3.02a00020 }}</ref>