Tunica

Tunica was a language isolate once spoken in United States.

Tunica · 31.0°N 92.5°W

An isolate: no relationship to any other known language has been demonstrated.

The Tunica or Luhchi Yoroni (or Tonica, or less common form Yuron) 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, there are 60 second-language speakers.

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.

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.

From Wikipedia · Tunica language · CC BY-SA 4.0

Words in Tunica

Meaning	Word	Romanization
woman	nuxtci
person	oni*
name	etisa*
eye	Stosu*
ear	alawEca*
nose	riSi*
tooth	ni*
tongue	lu*
hand	hkeni*
blood	tayiSi*
bone	taki*
skin	takiSi*
knee	Cina*
breast	uCu*
liver	elika*
water	wiši
fire	ayiwo*
sun	taC7i*
star	tispula*
stone	kumaS*
mountain	tuhura*
tree	riku*
leaf	tEraSki*
night	lawu*
dog	sa*
fish	nimi*
louse	nami*
one	saku*
two	ili*
I	ima*