Wiyot language

Wiyot
Wiyot
Wishosk
Soulatluk
Native to	United States
Region	Northwestern California
Ethnicity	Wiyot
Extinct	1962, with the death of Della Prince
Revival	late 2019
Language family	Algic Wiyot;
Language codes
ISO 639-3	wiy
Glottolog	wiyo1248
ELP	Wiyot
	Wiyot is classified as Extinct by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger

Wiyot (also Wishosk) or Soulatluk (lit. 'your jaw') is an Algic language^[3] spoken by the Wiyot people of Humboldt Bay, California. The language's last native speaker, Della Prince, died in 1962.

Wiyot, along with its geographical neighbor, the Yurok language, were first identified as relatives of the Algonquian languages by Edward Sapir in 1913, though this classification was disputed for decades in what came to be known as the Ritwan controversy. Due to the enormous geographical separation of Wiyot and Yurok from all other Algonquian languages, the validity of their genetic link was hotly contested by leading Americanist linguists; as Ives Goddard put it, the issue "has profound implications for the prehistory of North America".^[4] However, by the 1950s, the genetic relationship between the Algonquian languages and Wiyot and Yurok had been established to the satisfaction of most, if not all, researchers, giving rise to the term Algic to refer to the Algonquian languages together with Wiyot and Yurok.^[5]

The Wiyot Tribal Government is fostering a revival of the language through videos, online dictionaries, and an annual Wiyot language calendar.^[1]

^ ^a ^b ""Rou Soulatlouy" Wiyot Conversation Book Project". Wiyot Tribe. Retrieved January 24, 2021.
^ Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger (Report) (3rd ed.). UNESCO. 2010. p. 11.
^ Campbell, Lyle (1997), p. 152
^ Goddard, Ives (1975). Algonquin, Wiyot and Yurok: Proving a Distant Genetic Relationship. The Peter de Ridder Press.
^ Campell, Lynn (1997). American Indian languages: The historical linguistics of Native America. New York City: Oxford University Press.

[wiyot-1] ""Rou Soulatlouy" Wiyot Conversation Book Project". Wiyot Tribe. Retrieved January 24, 2021.

[2] Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger (Report) (3rd ed.). UNESCO. 2010. p. 11.

[C152-3] Campbell, Lyle (1997), p. 152

[4] Goddard, Ives (1975). Algonquin, Wiyot and Yurok: Proving a Distant Genetic Relationship. The Peter de Ridder Press.

[5] Campell, Lynn (1997). American Indian languages: The historical linguistics of Native America. New York City: Oxford University Press.

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]