Coahuiltecan was a proposed language family in John Wesley Powell's 1891 classification of Native American languages^[1] Most linguists now reject the view that the Coahuiltecan peoples of southern Texas and adjacent Mexico spoke a single or related languages.^[2] Coahuiltecan continues to be a convenient collective term for the languages and people of this region.

Language relationships[link]

Similarities among the cultures among the indigenous people and the physical setting of south Texas led linguists to believe that the languages of the region were also similar.^[3] The Coahuiltecan language family was proposed to include all the languages of the region, including Karankawa and Tonkawa. Linguistic connections were proposed with Hokan, a language family of several Native American peoples living in California, Arizona, and Baja California.^[4]

Most modern linguists, by contrast, see the Coahuiltecan region as one of linguistic diversity. A few words are known from seven different languages: Comecrudo, Cotoname, Aranama, Solano, Mamulique, Garza, and Coahuilteco or Pakawa. Coahuilteco or Pakawa seems to have been a lingua franca of Texas Coahuiltecans living at or near the Catholic Missions established at San Antonio in the 18th century. Almost certainly, many more languages were spoken, but numerous Coahuiltecan bands and ethnic groups became extinct between the 16th and 19th century and their languages were unrecorded. In 1886, ethnologist Albert Gatschet found perhaps the last surviving speakers of Coahuiltecan languages : 25 Comecrudo, 1 Cotoname, and 2 Pakawa. They were living near Reynosa, Mexico. ^[5] In 1690, the population of Indians in northeastern Mexico and southern Texas may have been 100,000. The Coahuiltecans were sold into slavery, died of introduced European diseases, or were absorbed by the Hispanic population. ^[6]

Linguists have postulated a Comecrudan language family with Comecudo, Mamulique, and Garza as related and Coahuilteco and Cotoname possibly related. Comecrudo and Contoname are the best known of the languages. They were spoken in the delta of the Rio Grande River^[7] Not enough information exists to classify Solano and Aranama. However, linguistic conservatives say that all these languages should be considered language isolates, with insufficient data to establish relationships between and among the languages.^[8]

The Coahuiltecan languages and culture are now extinct. The names of many bands have been preserved, including the Ervipiame, Mayeye, Pajalat, Quems, Quepano, Solano, and Xarames.

References[link]

Bibliography[link]

• Mithun, Marianne. (1999). The languages of Native North America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-23228-7 (hbk); ISBN 0-521-29875-X.

External links[link]

• Coahuiltecan Indians from the Handbook of Texas Online
• Reassessing Cultural Extinction: Change and Survival at Mission San Juan Capistrano, Texas – Chapter 8: Linguistics
• "Pakawá Indians". Catholic Encyclopedia. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11402a.htm. 
• "South Texas Plains » Who Were the "Coahuiltecans"?". Texas Beyond History. Austin: The University of Texas. http://www.texasbeyondhistory.net/st-plains/peoples/coahuiltecans.html. Retrieved 4 October 2011. 

Rudy Youngblood (born on September 21, 1982) is a Native American actor, musician, dancer and artist. He was born in Belton, Texas

Acting career[link]

In 2005, Youngblood moved to Los Angeles, California after touring across the United States with the Native American Dance Theater.

Youngblood was selected by Mel Gibson to play the leading role of Jaguar Paw in the epic film Apocalypto. He learned the Yucatec Maya language in order to appear in the film, in which all of the dialogue was Mayan.^[1]

He graduated from Belton High School in 2000, his parents made him finish school before he could do anything else. He knows a few Native American dances and was on the track team. He learned the Yucatec dialect for the movie. When he went to the audition for the movie he didn't know he was auditioning for the lead role, expecting a lesser one, however Gibson saw him as the 'perfect man' for the job. His last name was never changed from Gonzales to "Youngblood."^[1]

Filmography[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Rudy Youngblood at the Internet Movie Database
• A&U Magazine Article