Yurok language
| Yurok | |
|---|---|
| Puliklah | |
| Region | Northwestern California, U.S. |
| Ethnicity | Yurok |
| Extinct | 26 March 2013 with the death of Archie Thompson |
| Revival | language revival in progress; 17 fluent L2 speakers |
|
Algic
|
|
| Latin | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | |
| Glottolog | yuro1248 |
The Yurok language (also Chillula, Mita, Pekwan, Rikwa, Sugon, Weitspek, Weitspekan) is an Algic language. It is the traditional language of the Yurok tribe of Del Norte County and Humboldt County on the far North Coast of California, U.S., most of whom now speak English. The last native speaker died in 2013. As of 2012, Yurok language classes are taught at the high school level, and other revitalization efforts are expected to increase the population of speakers.
The standard reference on the Yurok language is the grammar by Robins (1958).
Concerning etymology of Yurok (AKA Weitspekan), this below is from Campbell (1997):
Decline of the language began during the California Gold Rush, due to the influx of new settlers and the diseases they brought with them. Boarding schools initiated by the United States government with the intent of incorporating the native populations of America into mainstream American society increased the rate of decline of the language.
The program to revive Yurok has been lauded as the most successful language revitalization program in California. As of 2014, there are six schools in Northern California that teach Yurok - 4 high schools and 2 elementary schools. Rick Jordan, principle of Eureka High School, one of the schools with a Yurok Language Program, remarks on the impact that schools can have on the vitality of a language, “A hundred years ago, it was our organizations that were beating the language out of folks, and now we’re trying to re-instill it - a little piece of something that is much larger than us”.
The last known native, active speaker of Yurok, Archie Thompson, died March 26, 2013. "He was also the last of about 20 elders who helped revitalize the language over the last few decades, after academics in the 1990s predicted it would be extinct by 2010. He made recordings of the language that were archived by UC Berkeley linguists and the tribe, spent hours helping to teach Yurok in community and school classrooms, and welcomed apprentice speakers to probe his knowledge."
...
Wikipedia