Timucuan language
| Timucua | |
|---|---|
| Pronunciation | [tiˈmuːkwa] |
| Native to | United States |
| Region | Florida, Southeastern Geography, Eastern Texas |
| Extinct | second half 18th century |
| Dialects |
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| Published in the Spanish alphabet, 1612–1635 | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | |
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Linguist list
|
tjm |
| Glottolog | timu1245 |
Pre-contact distribution of the Timucua language.
The Tawasa dialect, if it was Timucua, would have been geographically isolated in Alabama |
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Timucua is a language isolate formerly spoken in northern and central Florida and southern Georgia by the Timucua people. Timucua was the primary language used in the area at the time of Spanish colonization in Florida. Linguistic and archaeological studies suggest that it may have been spoken from around 2000 BC. Differences among the nine or ten Timucua dialects were slight, and appeared to serve mostly to delineate tribal boundaries. Some linguists suggest that the Tawasa of what is now northern Alabama may have spoken Timucua, but this is disputed.
Most of what is known of the language comes from the works of Father Francisco Pareja, a Franciscan missionary who came to St. Augustine in 1595. During his 31 years of service to the Timucua, he developed a writing system for the language, the first for an indigenous language of the Americas. He published several Spanish-Timucua catechisms, as well as a grammar of the Timucua language, from 1612-1627. His 1612 work was the first to be published in an indigenous language in the Americas. Including his six surviving works, only nine primary sources of information about the Timucua language survive, including two catechisms written in Timucua and Spanish by Father Gregorio de Movilla in 1635, and a Spanish-translated Timucuan letter to the Spanish Crown dated 1688.
In 1763 the British took over Florida from Spain following the Seven Years' War, and most Spanish colonists and mission Indians, including the few remaining Timucua speakers, left for Cuba, near Havana. The language group is now extinct.
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Wikipedia