Calusa language

Last updated
Calusa
RegionFlorida
Extinct ca. 1800
unclassified (related to Tunica? [1] )
Language codes
ISO 639-3 None (mis)
Glottolog calu1239

The Calusa language is an unclassified language of southern Florida, United States that was spoken by the Calusa people. [2]

Contents

Background and classification

Little is known of the language of the Calusa. A dozen words for which translations were recorded and 50 or 60 place names form the entire known corpus of the language. Circumstantial evidence, primarily from Hernando de Escalante Fontaneda, suggests that all of the peoples of southern Florida and the Tampa Bay area, including the Tequesta, Mayaimi, and Tocobaga, as well as the Calusa, spoke dialects of a common language. This language was distinct from the languages of the Apalachee, Timucua, Mayaca, and Ais people in central and northern Florida. [3]

Julian Granberry (1994) has suggested that the Calusa language was related to the Tunica language of the lower Mississippi River Valley, with Calusa possibly being relatively a recent arrival from the lower Mississippi region. Another possibility was that similarities between the languages were derived from long-term mutual contact. [1]

Phonology

Granberry (2011) provides the following inventory of Calusa phonemes. [4] [1]

Consonants
LabialApicalPalatalVelarGlottal
Plosiveptkʔ
Fricativesh
Rhoticr
Nasalmnɲ
Laterall
Approximantwj
Vowels
FrontCentralBack
Closeiu
Close-mideo
Open-midɛɔ
Opena

A Calusa /s/ [s̠] sound is said to range between a /s/ to a /ʃ/ sound.

Known words and phrases

A few vocabulary examples from Granberry (2011) are listed below: [4]

(*) denotes earlier century Calusa language records.

Some Calusa words, proper nouns, and phrases from Hernando de Escalante Fontaneda's writings (including his 1575 memoir Memoria de las cosas y costa y indios de la Florida) that are cited in Zamponi (2024) include: [2]

CalusaEnglish gloss (Zamponi 2024)Spanish gloss (original)notes
carlosferocious peoplequiere desir en su lenguaje pueblo ferosSpanish corruption of caalus
Certepechief king and great lordRey mayor y gran señor
ñobeloved townquiere dezir pueblo querido
seletegaRun, see if people are coming!Corre mira si biene jente
tejiEuelookout, vantage pointmiradero quiere dezir
cañogacolawicked people without respectgente bellaca sin Respetofrom regions above Tampa on the Gulf Coast
cuchiagaplace where there has been torturequiere dezir lugar Amartirisadofrom the Keys
guarugunbetown of weepingquiere desir en rromanse pueblo de llantofrom the Keys
guasaca Esguiriver of reedsquiere desir Rio de cañasfrom regions above Tampa on the Gulf Coast
mayaimi(very) largellamase laguna de mayaimi porqués muy grandefrom the Lake Okeechobee region
tocobaga chileprincipal chief of the Tocobaga el Rei casique mayor (...) llamase tocobaga chilefrom the area around Tampa Bay

Sipi is the name of a main idol in a Calusa temple, according to a 1743 report (Informe) by Fr. Joseph Xavier de Alaña that was sent to his superiors. [5]

Comparison with Tunica

See also

Related Research Articles

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References

  1. 1 2 3 Granberry, Julian (1994). "Evidence for a Calusa-Tunica Relationship". Papers of the Mid-America Linguistics Conference (MALC). Lawrence, Kansas: University of Kansas. pp. 505–519.
  2. 1 2 Zamponi, Raoul (2024). "Unclassified languages". The Languages and Linguistics of Indigenous North America. De Gruyter. pp. 1627–1648. doi:10.1515/9783110712742-061. ISBN   978-3-11-071274-2.
  3. Granberry, Julian (2011). The Calusa: Linguistic and Cultural Relationships. Tuscaloosa, Alabama: The University of Alabama Press. pp. 19–24. ISBN   978-0-8173-1751-5.
  4. 1 2 Granberry 2011: 27-38
  5. Sturtevant, William C. 1978. "The last of the south Florida aborigines". In Jerald T. Milanich & Samuel Proctor (eds.), Tacachale: essays on the Indians of Florida and southeastern Georgia during the historic period, 141–162. Gainesville, FL: The University Presses of Florida.