Catawba language

Catawba
Native to	United States
Region	South Carolina
Ethnicity	500 Catawba people (1977)
Extinct	before 1960
Language family	Siouan Eastern Catawba
Language codes
ISO 639-3	chc

Catawba is one of two Eastern Siouan languages of the eastern US, which together with the Western Siouan languages formed the Siouan language family.

Ethnologue reports that the last native speaker of Catawba died before 1960. Red Thunder Cloud, apparently an impostor born Cromwell Ashbie Hawkins West, claimed to speak the language until he died in 1996 (Goddard 2000). The tribe is now working to revive the Catawba language.

References

• Ives Goddard, 2000. "The Identity of Red Thunder Cloud", Smithsonian Institution, reprinted from Society for the Study of Indigenous Languages of the Americas Newsletter. (accessed 8 Apr 2010)