Trisha Shetty (Editor)

Karankawa language

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Native to
  
United States

Extinct
  
1858

ISO 639-3
  
zkk

Ethnicity
  
Karankawa people

Language family
  
unclassified

Karankawa language

Region
  
Texas coast, from Galveston Island to Corpus Christi

Karankawa is the extinct, unclassified language of the Texan coast, where the Karankawa people migrated between the mainland and the barrier islands. It was not closely related to other known languages in the area, much of which are also poorly attested, and may have been a language isolate. A couple hundred words are preserved, collected in 1698, 1720, and 1828; in the 1880s, three lists were collected from non-Karankawa who knew some words.

Karankawa has sometimes been included with neighboring languages in a Coahuiltecan family, but that is now thought to be spurious.

References

Karankawa language Wikipedia