The Pakawan languages are a proposed small language family formerly spoken in what is today

northern Mexico Northern Mexico ( ), commonly referred as , is an informal term for the northern cultural and geographical area in Mexico. Depending on the source, it contains some or all of the states of Baja California, Baja California Sur, Chihuahua (state), ...

and southern

Texas Texas ( , ; or ) is the most populous U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the we ...

Classification

Five clear Pakawan languages are attested:

Coahuilteco Coahuilteco was one of the Indigenous languages that was spoken in southern Texas (United States) and northeastern Coahuila (Mexico). It is now extinct, and is typically considered to be a language isolate, but has also been proposed to be part o ...

Cotoname Cotoname is an Indigenous language of Mexico and the American state of Texas formerly spoken by Native Americans indigenous to the lower Rio Grande Valley of northeastern Mexico and extreme southern Texas (United States). Today it is extinct, a ...

Comecrudo Comecrudan refers to a group of possibly related languages spoken in the southernmost part of Texas and in northern Mexico along the Rio Grande of which ''Comecrudo'' is the best known. These were spoken by the Comecrudo people. Very little is ...

, Garza and Mamulique. The first three were first proposed to be related by

John Wesley Powell John Wesley Powell (March 24, 1834 – September 23, 1902) was an American geologist, U.S. Army soldier, explorer of the American West, professor at Illinois Wesleyan University, and director of major scientific and cultural institutions. He ...

in 1891, in a grouping then called Coahuiltecan. Goddard (1979) groups the latter three in a

Comecrudan Comecrudan refers to a group of possibly related languages spoken in the southernmost part of Texas and in northern Mexico along the Rio Grande of which ''Comecrudo'' is the best known. These were spoken by the Comecrudo people. Very little is ...

family while considering the others

language isolate A language isolate is a language that has no demonstrable genetic relationship with any other languages. Basque in Europe, Ainu and Burushaski in Asia, Sandawe in Africa, Haida and Zuni in North America, Kanoê in South America, and Tiwi ...

s. This is followed by more modern scholars. The current composition and the present name "Pakawan" are due to Manaster Ramer (1996). The term

Coahuiltecan languages Coahuiltecan was a proposed language family in John Wesley Powell's 1891 classification of Native American languages. Most linguists now reject the view that the Coahuiltecan peoples of southern Texas and adjacent Mexico spoke a single or relate ...

today refers to a slightly expanded and less securely established grouping. Most Pakawan languages have at times been included also in the much larger and highly hypothetical Hokan "stock".

Common vocabulary

The following word comparisons are given by Manaster Ramer (1996): The following

sound change In historical linguistics, a sound change is a change in the pronunciation of a language. A sound change can involve the replacement of one speech sound (or, more generally, one phonetic feature value) by a different one (called phonetic chan ...

s and correspondences should be noted: * Vocalization of word-final *l in Cotoname: 'sun', 'straw', red' * Lenition of *p to /xw/ in Coahuilteco between vowels: #apel', #mapi * Syncope of * Apocope of final ''e'' (perhaps ) in Comecrudo: 'man', 'low ater, 'to kneel'. * /k/, /kw/ in other languages correspond to /x/, /xw/ in Cotoname, when before /a/ ('man', 'low ater, 'to eat', 'to suck', 'to write'), as well as in Coahuilteco, when before any low vowel (__examples). * /kiV/ in Comecrudo corresponds to /kuV/ in Coahuilteco: 'blood', 'to go' * ''s ~ l'' (perhaps indicating a lateral fricative ) in Comecrudo corresponds to ''s'' in Coahuilteco: Comecrudo 'blood', 'devil', 'to fall'. * Initial ''y'' in Comecrudo corresponds to /ts/ in Coahuilteco: ''I'', ''chest'', ''to hear''

Lexical comparison

The

Karankawa The Karankawa were an Indigenous people concentrated in southern Texas along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, largely in the lower Colorado River and Brazos River valleys."Karankawa." In ''Cassell's Peoples, Nations and Cultures,'' edited by Joh ...

, Solano, and Maratino data below are all from Swanton (1940). The Quinigua data is from Gursky (1964), which in turn is from del Hoyo (1960). Naolan is from Weitlaner (1948),Weitlaner, Roberto J.. 1948. Un Idioma Desconocido del Norte de México. In ''Actes du XXVIII Congrès International de Américanistes'', 205-227. Paris. and

Tonkawa The Tonkawa are a Native American tribe from Oklahoma and Texas. Their Tonkawa language, now extinct language, extinct, is a linguistic isolate. Today, Tonkawa people are enrolled in the Federally recognized tribes, federally recognized Tonkawa ...

is from Hoijer (1949).Hoijer, Harry. 1949. ''An analytical dictionary of the Tonkawa language''. University of California publications in linguistics, 5(1). Berkeley: University of California Press.

Classification

Common vocabulary

Lexical comparison

References

Further reading