Taensa language
| Taensa | |
|---|---|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | – |
| Taensa [fraudulent] |
|
|---|---|
| Created by | Jean Parisot |
| Date | 1882 |
| Purpose |
not applicable
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 |
None (mis) |
| Glottolog | (insufficiently attested or not a distinct language)taen1234
|
The Taensa language was the Natchez language-variant spoken by the Taensa people originally of northeastern Louisiana, and later with historical importance in Alabama. The language is also well known in linguistic and historical circles for the fact that two young co-conspirators published purported studies of the Taensa language in 1880-1882 that was later proven fraudulent, unequivocally in 1908-1910 by John R. Swanton.
Some French missionary priests reported that they learned Natchez in order to speak to the Taensa; Mooney's summary of the people and missionary efforts describes the Taensa language as a variant of the Natchez. The language spoken by the Taensa survived as a means of communication into the second half of the nineteenth century, and people that still identify as Taensa have been documented from the 1930s through to the present day.
The language has received academic attention in largest part for the fact that two young men, one a clerical student named Parisot, published purported "material of the Taensa language, including papers, songs, a grammar and vocabulary" in Paris in 1880-1882, reports which led to considerable interest on the part of philologists and linguists of the time. The work proved to be a "fraudulent invention... of some one... from whom the manuscripts had originally come" or perhaps of the student Parisot. The fraudulently invented language was unrelated to the actual language variant spoken by the Taensa people; the invention was unique enough in its grammar to arouse the interest referred to above. Several eminent scholars were taken in by the materials, but by 1885, Daniel Garrison Brinton and Julien Vinson had reported the work to be fraudulent. Later, Swanton exposed the work as a clear hoax, and the matter of the Parisot fraud continues to receive modern historical and linguistic attention to modern times.
The native Americans originally of northeastern Louisiana known as the Taensa were related to, but had separated themselves from the peoples of the Natchez nation, following a series of conflicts with them and others—e.g., the Taensa had been subject to slave raids by the Chickasaw, Yazoo, and Natchez. By the time of the Natchez Massacre under the governor of French Louisiana, Bienville, the Taensa had moved from Louisiana to Alabama. Also referred to as the Tensas, Tensaw, and grands Taensas (in French), and by many other near variants (see the article on the Taensa people), the people so named were village-dwelling native Americans originally from lands near present day Tensas Parish, Louisiana. Relocating several times in response to inter-tribal hostilities, the Taensa ultimately migrated, ca. 1740, under French protection to lands along the current Tensas river near Mobile, Alabama, only to return to the Red River in Louisiana after land cessions by the French to the English in 1763, then moving southward to Bayou Boeuf and Grand Lake before their disappearance as a community.
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Wikipedia