Cruzeño, also known as Isleño (Ysleño) or Island Chumash, is one of the extinct Chumashan languages spoken along the coastal areas of Southern California. It shows evidence of mixing between a core Chumashan language such as Barbareño or Ventureño and an indigenous language of the Channel Islands. The latter was presumably spoken on the islands since the end of the last ice age separated them from the mainland; Chumash would have been introduced in the first millennium after the introduction of plank canoes on the mainland. Evidence of the substratum language is retained in a noticeably non-Chumash phonology, and basic non-Chumash words such as those for 'water' and 'house'.[1]

Cruzeño
Isleño
Island Chumash
Native toCalifornia, United States
RegionSanta Cruz Island, Santa Rosa Island
Extinct1915, with the death of Fernando Librado
Chumashan
  • Southern
    • Cruzeño
Dialects
  • Cruzeño
  • Roseño
Language codes
ISO 639-3crz
crz
Glottologcruz1243

References

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  1. ^ Golla, Victor. (2011). California Indian Languages. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-5202-6667-4
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