Tuscarora language

Tuscarora
Ska꞉rù꞉ręʼ
Skarò˙rə̨ˀ
Native toUnited States
RegionSix Nations of the Grand River First Nation in southern Ontario, Tuscarora Reservation in northwestern New York, and eastern North Carolina
Ethnicity17,000 Tuscarora people (1997)[1]
Extinct2 December 2020
Revival2020s[2]
Iroquoian
  • Northern
    • Tuscarora–Nottoway
      • Tuscarora
Language codes
ISO 639-3tus
Glottologtusc1257
ELPTuscarora
Pre-contact distribution of Tuscarora
Tuscarora is classified as Critically Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

Tuscarora, sometimes called Skarò˙rə̨ˀ, is the Iroquoian language of the Tuscarora people, spoken in southern Ontario, Canada, North Carolina and northwestern New York around Niagara Falls, in the United States before becoming extinct in late 2020. The historic homeland of the Tuscarora was in eastern North Carolina, in and around the Goldsboro, Kinston, and Smithfield areas.

The name Tuscarora (/ˌtʌskəˈrɔːrə/ TUS-kə-ROHR-ə)[3] means "hemp people," after the Indian hemp (hemp dogbane, Apocynum cannabinum), which they use in many aspects of their society. Skarureh refers to the long shirt worn as part of the men's regalia, and so the name literally means "long shirt people."

Tuscarora is recently extinct, the last fluent first language speaker having died in 2020. In the mid-1970s, 50 people spoke it on the Tuscarora Reservation (Lewiston, New York) and the Six Nations of the Grand River First Nation (near Brantford, Ontario). The Tuscarora School in Lewiston has striven to keep Tuscarora alive as a heritage language by teaching children from pre-kindergarten to sixth grade.

The language can appear complex to those unfamiliar with it more in terms of its grammar than its sound system. Many ideas can be expressed in a single word. Most words involve several components that must be considered. The language is written using mostly symbols from the Roman alphabet, with some variations, additions, and diacritics.

  1. ^ Tuscarora language at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  2. ^ "NTLP". www.tuscaroralanguage.org. Retrieved 2024-08-22.
  3. ^ "Tuscarora". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.)