Alabama is closely related to Koasati and Apalachee, and more distantly to other Muskogean languages like Hitchiti, Chickasaw and Choctaw.

(See here for other de Soto contactees) In the 18th century, the French arrived on the Gulf Coast and built a fort at what became Mobile, Alabama.

Under pressure as well by Native American enemies, the Alabama and Coushatta tribes wanted to avoid the powerful Choctaw in present-day Mississippi.

In the early 19th century, the Texas Congress granted each tribe two strips of land along the Trinity River.

Sam Houston, the governor of Texas, recommended that the state purchase 1,280 acres (5.2 km2) for the Alabamas.

Many of their descendants are enrolled members of the federally recognized Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana.

The voiceless stops /p t k/ are typically fortis[clarification needed] and unlike in many other Southeastern languages they are not voiced between vowels.

The only voiced obstruent in Alabama is /b/, which is realized as [m] when it occurs in coda (syllable final) position.

The two phonemic tones have several different allophonic realizations depending on vowel length and neighboring consonants.

[10] Since January 2024, the Alabama–Coushatta Tribe of Texas has engaged in a revitalization and documentation effort in partnership with the WOLF (Working on Language in the Field) Lab at Harvard University, with a five-year goal "to document the language, study its grammar and lexicon, and produce educational resources for the Alabama-Coushatta community.