Karankawa People - Language

Language

The Karankawa language, of which only about a hundred words are preserved, cannot be classified, as so little is known of languages in this region. The meaning of the name Karankawa is not certain. It is believed to mean "dog-lovers" or "dog-helpers." That rendering seems credible, since the Karankawas had dogs, which were a fox or coyote-like species. In a nomadic-type culture, the people seasonally migrated between the mainland and the barrier islands.

Read more about this topic:  Karankawa People

Famous quotes containing the word language:

    Any language is necessarily a finite system applied with different degrees of creativity to an infinite variety of situations, and most of the words and phrases we use are “prefabricated” in the sense that we don’t coin new ones every time we speak.
    David Lodge (b. 1935)

    The language I have learnt these forty years,
    My native English, now I must forgo,
    And now my tongue’s use is to me no more
    Than an unstringèd viol or a harp.
    William Shakespeare (1564–1616)