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Tunica language
| Tunica | |
|---|---|
| Luhchi Yoroni | |
| Native to | United States |
| Region | Central Louisiana |
| Ethnicity | Tunica people |
| Extinct | December 6, 1948 with the death of Sesostrie Youchigant[1] |
| Revival | 60 L2 speakers (2023)[1] |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | tun |
| Glottolog | tuni1252 |
| ELP | Tunica |
 Pre-contact distribution of the Tunica language. | |
The Tunica or Luhchi Yoroni (or Tonica, or less common form Yuron)[2] language is a language isolate that was spoken in the Central and Lower Mississippi Valley in the United States by Native American Tunica peoples. There are no native speakers of the Tunica language, but there were 32 second-language speakers in 2017, and as of 2023[update], there are 60 second-language speakers.[1]
Tunica-Biloxi tribal member William Ely Johnson worked with Swiss ethnologist Albert Gatschet to help him document the language in 1886. This initial documentation was further developed by linguist John R. Swanton in the early 1900s.[3]
The last known native speaker, Sesostrie Youchigant, died in 1948. In the 1930s, linguist Mary Haas worked with him to describe what Youchigant remembered of the language, and the description was published in A Grammar of the Tunica Language in 1941. That was followed by Tunica Texts in 1950 and Tunica Dictionary in 1953.
By the 17th century, the people had suffered a high rate of fatalities from Eurasian infectious diseases, warfare, and social disruption. The reduced Tunica tribe lived close to the Ofo and Avoyelles tribes, in present-day Louisiana. They communicated by Mobilian Jargon or French. The small population and the use of a jargon made Haas note that the eventual deterioration of the Tunica language was inevitable.[4]
- ^ a b c Tunica at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
- ^ "Language names:T". Archived from the original on 2010-01-13. Retrieved 2010-02-15.
- ^ Swanton, John R. (1921). "The Tunica Language". International Journal of American Linguistics. 2 (1/2): 1–39. doi:10.1086/463732. JSTOR 1263179. S2CID 143814015.
- ^ Haas, Mary R., Tunica, New York: J.J. Augustin Publisher, 1940.
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