Gulf is a proposed native North America

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

n language family composed of the Muskogean languages

Muskogean languages

Muskogean is an indigenous language family of the Southeastern United States. Though there is an ongoing debate concerning their interrelationships, the Muskogean languages are generally divided into two branches, Eastern Muskogean and Western Muskogean...

, along with four extinct language isolates: Natchez

Natchez language

Natchez was a language of Louisiana. Its two last fluent speakers, Watt Sam and Nancy Raven, died in the late 1930s. The Natchez nation is now working to revive it as a spoken language.-Classification:...

, Tunica

Tunica language

The Tunica language was a language isolate spoken in the Central and Lower Mississippi Valley by in the United States by Native American Tunica peoples. There are no known speakers of the Tunica language remaining.When the last known fluent speaker Sesostrie Youchigant died, the language became...

, 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 (possibly) Chitimacha

Chitimacha language

The Chitimacha language is a language isolate historically spoken by the Chitimacha people of Louisiana, United States. It went extinct in 1940 with the death of the last fluent speaker, Delphine Ducloux....

.

Gulf was proposed as a language family by Mary Haas (Haas 1951, 1952), but the family has not been rigorously established by the comparative method. Historical linguists such as Lyle Campbell

Lyle Campbell

Lyle Richard Campbell is a linguist and leading expert on indigenous American languages—especially those of Mesoamerica—and on historical linguistics in general. He also has expertise in Uralic languages. He is presently Professor of Linguistics at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.-Life and...

 (Campbell and Mithun 1979, Campbell 1997) list the relationship as unproven, though a number of Muskogean scholars believe that Muskogean is at least related to Natchez (Campbell 1997:305).

However, a number of specialists on Muskogean languages

Muskogean languages

Muskogean is an indigenous language family of the Southeastern United States. Though there is an ongoing debate concerning their interrelationships, the Muskogean languages are generally divided into two branches, Eastern Muskogean and Western Muskogean...

, including Mary Haas

Mary Haas

Mary Rosamund Haas was an American linguist who specialized in North American Indian languages, Thai, and historical linguistics.-Early work in linguistics:...

 and Pamela Munro

Pamela Munro

Pamela Munro is an American linguist who specializes in Native American languages. A graduate of the University of California, San Diego, her graduate adviser was Margaret Langdon. She teaches at the University of California, Los Angeles...

 Munro (1995) have regarded the hypothesis of a Gulf family of languages as promising; Haas thought the closest language to Muskogean would be Natchez, followed by Tunica, Atakapa, and, rather dubiously, Chitimacha. A difficulty in evaluating the hypothesis is the lack of available data. Most of the data on Chitimacha

Chitimacha

The Chitimacha are a Native American federally recognized tribe that lives in the U.S. state of Louisiana, mainly in St. Mary Parish. They currently number about 720 people. The Chitimacha language is a language isolate.- History :The Chitimacha's historic home was the southern Louisiana coast...

 and Natchez

Natchez

Natchez may refer to:* Natchez people, a Native American nation* Natchez language, the language of that Native American tribe* Natchez, Mississippi, United States* Natchez, Louisiana, United States* Natchez, Indiana, United States...

is still unpublished and held in archives.