Comecrudan refers to a group of possibly related languages spoken in the southernmost part of Texas

Texas

Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...

 and in northern Mexico

Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

 along the Rio Grande

Rio Grande

The Rio Grande is a river that flows from southwestern Colorado in the United States to the Gulf of Mexico. Along the way it forms part of the Mexico – United States border. Its length varies as its course changes...

. Comecrudo is the most well-known.

Very little is known about these languages or the people who spoke them. Knowledge of them primarily consists of word lists collected by European

European ethnic groups

The ethnic groups in Europe are the various ethnic groups that reside in the nations of Europe. European ethnology is the field of anthropology focusing on Europe....

 missionaries and explorers.

All Comecrudan languages are extinct

Extinct language

An extinct language is a language that no longer has any speakers., or that is no longer in current use. Extinct languages are sometimes contrasted with dead languages, which are still known and used in special contexts in written form, but not as ordinary spoken languages for everyday communication...

.

Family division

The three languages were:

1. Comecrudo
   Comecrudo language
   Comecrudo is an extinct Comecrudan language of Mexico. The name Comecrudo is Spanish for "eat-raw"; Carrizo is Spanish for "reed". It was best recorded in a list of 148 words in 1829 by French botanist Jean Louis Berlandier...
   
   (also known as Mulato or Carrizo) (†)
2. Garza
   Garza language
   Garza is an extinct Comecrudan language of Texas and Mexico. It is known from two tribal names and twenty-one words recorded from the chief of the Garza by Berlandier in 1828 . At that time, the Garza all spoke Spanish and were acculturated...
   
   (†)
3. Mamulique
   Mamulique language
   Mamulique is an extinct Comecrudan language of Mexico.Called Carrizo by Berlandier, it was recorded in a twenty-two-word vocabulary from near Mamulique, Nuevo León in 1828...
   
   (also known as Carrizo de Mamulique) (†)

Genetic relationships

In John Wesley Powell

John Wesley Powell

John Wesley Powell was a U.S. soldier, geologist, explorer of the American West, and director of major scientific and cultural institutions...

's 1891 classification of North American languages, Comecrudo was grouped together with the Cotoname

Cotoname language

Cotoname is an extinct language isolate spoken by Native Americans indigenous to the lower Rio Grande Valley of northeastern Mexico and extreme southern Texas .-External links:* * *...

 and Coahuilteco

Coahuilteco language

Coahuilteco was a language isolate that was spoken in southern Texas and northeastern Coahuila . It was spoken by one tribe of a group of American Indian hunter-gatherers named the Quems....

 languages into a family called Coahuiltecan

Coahuiltecan

Coahuiltecan or Paikawa was a proposed language family in John Wesley Powell's 1891 classification of Native American languages that consisted of Coahuilteco and Cotoname. The proposal was expanded to include Comecrudo, Karankawa, and Tonkawa...

.

John R. Swanton

John R. Swanton

John Reed Swanton was an American anthropologist and linguist who worked with Native American peoples throughout the United States. Swanton achieved recognition in the fields of ethnology and ethnohistory...

 (1915) grouped together the Comecrudo, Cotoname, Coahuilteco, Karankawa

Karankawa language

Karankawa is the extinct, unclassified language of the Texan coast, where the Karankawa people migrated between the mainland and the barrier islands. It was not closely related to other known languages in the area, much of which are also poorly attested, and may have been a language isolate...

, Tonkawa

Tonkawa language

The Tonkawa language was spoken in Oklahoma, Texas, and New Mexico by the Tonkawa people. A language isolate, with no known related languages, Tonkawa is now extinct...

, Atakapa

Atakapa language

Atakapa is an extinct language isolate native to southwestern Louisiana and nearby coastal eastern Texas. It was spoken by the Atakapa people .-Geographic variation:There were two varieties of Atakapa Atakapa is an extinct language isolate native to southwestern Louisiana and nearby coastal eastern...

, and Maratino

Maratino language

Maratino is a barely attested extinct language that was spoken in north-east Mexico, near Martín, Tamaulipas. Swanton, who called it 'Tamaulipeco', classified it as Uto-Aztecan based on a few obvious cognates, such as Maratino chiguat 'woman' ~ Nahuatl cihuātl 'woman' and peyot 'peyote' ~ Nahuatl...

 languages into a Coahuiltecan grouping.

Edward Sapir

Edward Sapir

Edward Sapir was an American anthropologist-linguist, widely considered to be one of the most important figures in the early development of the discipline of linguistics....

 (1920) accepted Swanton's proposal and grouped this hypothetical Coahuiltecan into his Hokan stock.

After these proposals, documentation of the Garza and Mamulique languages was brought to light. It is now thought that the Comecrudan languages are not part of any of the proposed larger groupings mentioned above. Goddard (1979) believes that there is sufficient similarity between Comecrudan, Garza, and Mamulique for them to be considered genetically related.

See also

• Native American languages
• Classification schemes for Native American languages