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{{Use American English|date=December 2025}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=December 2025}}
{{More citations needed|date=September 2025}}{{Annotated image|image=Paiute map.svg|image-width=800|image-left=-10|image-top=-55|width=200|height=270|float=right|annotations=|caption=Historic map of tribes called "Paiute" overlaid on a map of present-day western US state borders}}

'''Paiute''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|p|aɪ|juː|t}}; also '''Piute''') refers to three non-contiguous groups of [[Indigenous peoples of the Great Basin]]. Although their languages are related within the [[Numic languages|Numic]] group of [[Uto-Aztecan languages]], these three languages do not form a single subgroup and they are no more closely related to each than they are to the Central Numic languages ([[Timbisha language|Timbisha]], [[Shoshoni language|Shoshoni]], and [[Comanche language|Comanche]]) which are spoken between them.<!--<ref>[http://glottolog.org/resource/languoid/id/numi1242 Glottolog]</ref>-->  

The term "Paiute" does not refer to a single, unique, unified group of Great Basin tribes, but is a historical label<!--<ref>d'Azevedo, Warren L. (1986), ''Handbook of North American Indians, Volume 11, Great Basin'', Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution</ref>--> comprising:
* [[Northern Paiute people]] of northeastern California, northwestern Nevada, eastern Oregon, and southern Idaho
* [[Southern Paiute people]] of northern Arizona, southern Nevada, and southwestern Utah<ref>{{Cite book |last=Canaday |first=Timothy W. |url=https://archive.org/details/highaltitudearch00cana/page/18/mode/2up?q=Paiute |title=High-altitude Archeological investigations at Cedar Breaks National Monument, Utah |date=2001 |publisher=U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service}}</ref>
* [[Mono people]] of east central California, divided into [[Mono people#Eastern Mono (Owens Valley Paiute)|Owens Valley Paiute]] (Eastern Mono) and [[Mono people#Western Mono|Western Mono]] (Monache)

==Linguistic differences==
Though sharing similar Numic roots, the three groups historically called Paiute have different languages as shown below:

{{clade
|label1=[[Numic languages|Numic]]
|1={{clade
       |label1=
       |1={{clade 
          |newick1=([[Northern Paiute language|Northern Paiute]],[[Californian Mono language|Mono]])''Western''
          |newick2=([[Kawaiisu language|Kawaiisi]],[[Colorado River Numic language|Southern Paiute]])''Southern''
          |2=Leaf B
          }}
       }}
}}

[[File:Numic tree.svg|thumb|center|upright=2.5|Tree of '''[[Numic languages]]''' showing the classification differences between the various groups called "Paiute" with the ''Western Numic'' branch of languages containing [[Mono language (California)|Mono]] with its [[Mono people#Eastern Mono (Owens Valley Paiute)|Owens Valley Paiute]] dialect and [[Northern Paiute language|Northern Paiute]] on the left and the ''Southern Numic'' branch containing the [[Colorado River Numic language|Colorado River language]] and its ''[[Southern Paiute people|Southern Paiute]]'' dialect on the right. [[Mutual intelligibility|Mutually intelligible]] groups of dialects are grouped together at the bottom of each branch in ''italics''.]]

==References==
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[[Category:Paiute| ]]