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Nez Perce has two main dialects (Upper and Lower). Sahaptin has considerably greater internal diversity with linguists grouping them into three dialect clusters; northwest cluster, Columbia River cluster, and a Northeast cluster. Although these languages are related they are mutually unintelligible

Note that the terms Sahaptian (the family) and Sahaptin (the language) have often been confused and used interchangeably in the literature.

The Nez Perce or the Nimiipuu as they like to be called people traditionally lived in an area from the bitterroot mountians in the East to the Blue Mountians in the west, while the Sahaptin speakers cover a much larger area because there are at least fourteen tribes that speak it today.