Coosan languages

The Coosan (also Coos or Kusan) language family consists of two languages spoken along the southern Oregon coast:

Family division

• 1. Hanis
• 2. Miluk (a.k.a. Lower Coquille)

Melville Jacobs (1939) says that the languages are as close as Dutch and High German.

The origin of the name Coos is uncertain: one idea is that it is derived from Hanis stem gus- meaning 'south' as in gusimídži·č 'southward'; another idea is that it is derived from a southwestern Oregon Athabaskan word ku·s meaning 'bay'. The name Hanis is derived from há·nis which is the Hanis name for themselves. Miluk is derived from míluk the Miluk name for themselves, which is related to a village name.

Miluk was spoken around the lower Coquille River and the South Slough of Coos Bay. The last known known speaker of Miluk was Annie Miner Peterson (who knew both Miluk and Hanis and recorded songs and myths on phonographs). She died in 1939.

Hanis was spoken north of the Milulk around the Coos River and Coos Bay. The last known speaker of Hanis was Martha Johnson who died in 1972.

Genetic relations

In 1916 Edward Sapir suggested that the Coosan languages are part of a larger Oregon Penutian genetic grouping. This is currently being investigated.

External links

See also: Coos (tribe).

• Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua, and Siuslaw homepage
• Languages of Oregon - Coos
• Coos, Lower Umpqua & Siuslaw Tribes profile

Bibliography

• Campbell, Lyle. (1997). American Indian languages: The historical linguistics of Native America. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-509427-1.
• Frachtenberg, Leo J. (1914). Lower Umpqua texts and notes on the Kusan dialect. California University contributions to anthropology (Vol. 4, pp. 141-150). (Reprinted 1969, New York: AMS Press).
• Mithun, Marianne. (1999). The languages of Native North America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-23228-7 (hbk); ISBN 0-521-29875-X.
• Whereat, Don. (1992). (Personal communication in Mithun 1999).

Hanis

• Frachtenberg, Leo J. (1913). Coos texts. California University contributions to anthropology (Vol. 1). New York: Columbia University Press. (Reprinted 1969 New York: AMS Press).
• Frachtenberg, Leo J. (1922). Coos: An illustrative sketch. In Handbook of American Indian languages (Vol. 2, pp. 297-299, 305). Bulletin, 40, pt. 2. Washington:Government Print Office (Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American Ethnology).
• Grant, Anthony. (1996). John Milhau's 1856 Hanis vocabularies: Coos dialectology and philology. In V. Golla (Ed.), Proceedings of the Hokan-Penutian workshop: University of Oregon, Eugene, July 1994 and University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, July 1995. Survey of California and other Indian languages (No. 9). Berkeley, CA: Survey of California and Other Languages.

Miluk

• Dorsey, James Owen. (1885). On the comparative phonology of four Siouan languages. In Annual reports of the Board of Regents for the year 1883, Smithsonian Institution (No. 3, pp. 919-929). Washington, D. C.: U.S. Government Printing Office (Bureau of American Ethnology).
• Jacobs, Melville. (1939). Coos narrative and ethnologic texts. University of Washington publications in anthropology (Vol. 8, No. 1). Seattle, WA: University of Washington.
• Jacobs, Melville. (1940). Coos myth texts. University of Washington publications in anthropology (Vol. 8, No. 2). Seattle, WA: University of Washington.