Region Louisiana ISO 639-3 None (mis) Glottolog None | Extinct 1700 Linguist list 093 | |
Language family unclassified (Bayogoula?) | ||
The Quinipissa (sometimes spelled Kinipissa in French sources) were an indigenous group living on the lower Mississippi River, in present day Louisiana, as reported by René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle in 1682.
They were joined together with the Mougoulacha. The combined group shared a village with the Bayogoula. In 1700 the Bayogoula massacred both the Quinipissa and Mougoulacha. In 1699, La Salle encountered a group of Quinipissa living with Koroa in a village on the western bank of the Mississippi River.
Language
The Quinipissa may have spoken the same language as the Mougoulacha and Bayogoula. The Bayogoula language is only attested with a single word.
Albert Gatschet considered Quinipissa a Muskogean language Coast Choctaw ("Coast Chaʼhta") based on evidence that many peoples of this area spoke the lingua franca Mobilian Jargon and have names that appear to be exonyms of Mobilian Jargon or Muskogean origin. This is repeated by John W. Powell and John Swanton. However, a map by Nicolas de Fer states that all nations of this region spoke different languages and barely understood each other. Thus, there is no real linguistic evidence to conclude that the Quinipissa are Muskogean.