The Coosan (also Coos or Kusan) language family consists of two languages spoken along the southern Oregon coast:

• Hanis
• Miluk (a.k.a. Lower Coquille)

Melville Jacobs (1939) says that the languages are as close as Dutch and High German. Subdivisions Central German Upper German High German (in German, Hochdeutsch) is any of several German dialects spoken in Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, and Luxembourg (as well as in neighbouring portions of Belgium, France (Alsace), Italy, Poland, and Romania (Transylvania) and in some areas of former colonial settlement, for example in...

The origin of the name Coos is uncertain: one idea is that it is derived from Hanis stem gus- meaning 'south' as in gusimídži·č 'southward'; another idea is that it is derived from a southwestern Oregon Athabaskan word ku·s meaning 'bay'. The name Hanis is derived from há·nis which is the Hanis name for themselves. Miluk is derived from míluk the Miluk name for themselves, which is related to a village name.

Miluk was spoken around the lower Coquille River and the South Slough of Coos Bay. The last known known speaker of Miluk was Annie Miner Peterson (who knew both Miluk and Hanis and recorded songs and myths on phonographs). She died in 1939. The Coquille River is a river, 35 mi (56 km) long, in southwestern Oregon in the United States. ... Coos Bay is small S-shaped inlet, approximately 10 mi (16 km) long and 2 mi (3 km) wide, on the Pacific Ocean coast of southwestern Oregon in the United States. ...

Hanis was spoken north of the Milulk around the Coos River and Coos Bay. The last known speaker of Hanis was Martha Johnson who died in 1972. The Coos River is a river, approximately 60 mi (97 km) long, in southwest Oregon in the United States. ...

In 1916 Edward Sapir suggested that the Coosan languages are part of a larger Oregon Penutian genetic grouping. This is currently being investigated. Edward Sapir (pronunciation: suh PEER), (1884-1939) was an American anthropologist-linguist, a leader in American structural linguistics, and one of the creators of what is now called the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. ... Oregon Penutian is a language family in the Penutian language phylum comprising languages spoken at one time by several groups of Native Americans in present-day western Oregon and western Washington in the United States. ...

External links

See also: Coos (tribe). Coos is one of the three Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua, and Siuslaw located on the southwest Oregon Pacific coast in the United States. ...

• Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua, and Siuslaw homepage (http://www.ctclusi.org/)
• Languages of Oregon - Coos (http://logos.uoregon.edu/explore/oregon/coos.html)
• Coos, Lower Umpqua & Siuslaw Tribes profile (http://www.npaihb.org/profiles/tribal_profiles/Oregon/Coos&Siuslaw&Lower_%20Umpqua.htm)

Bibliography

• Campbell, Lyle. (1997). American Indian languages: The historical linguistics of Native America. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-509427-1.
• Frachtenberg, Leo J. (1914). Lower Umpqua texts and notes on the Kusan dialect. California University contributions to anthropology (Vol. 4, pp. 141-150). (Reprinted 1969, New York: AMS Press).
• Mithun, Marianne. (1999). The languages of Native North America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-23228-7 (hbk); ISBN 0-521-29875-X.
• Whereat, Don. (1992). (Personal communication in Mithun 1999).

Hanis

• Frachtenberg, Leo J. (1913). Coos texts. California University contributions to anthropology (Vol. 1). New York: Columbia University Press. (Reprinted 1969 New York: AMS Press).
• Frachtenberg, Leo J. (1922). Coos: An illustrative sketch. In Handbook of American Indian languages (Vol. 2, pp. 297-299, 305). Bulletin, 40, pt. 2. Washington:Government Print Office (Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American Ethnology).
• Grant, Anthony. (1996). John Milhau's 1856 Hanis vocabularies: Coos dialectology and philology. In V. Golla (Ed.), Proceedings of the Hokan-Penutian workshop: University of Oregon, Eugene, July 1994 and University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, July 1995. Survey of California and other Indian languages (No. 9). Berkeley, CA: Survey of California and Other Languages.

Miluk

• Dorsey, James Owen. (1885). On the comparative phonology of four Siouan languages. In Annual reports of the Board of Regents for the year 1883, Smithsonian Institution (No. 3, pp. 919-929). Washington, D. C.: U.S. Government Printing Office (Bureau of American Ethnology).
• Jacobs, Melville. (1939). Coos narrative and ethnologic texts. University of Washington publications in anthropology (Vol. 8, No. 1). Seattle, WA: University of Washington.
• Jacobs, Melville. (1940). Coos myth texts. University of Washington publications in anthropology (Vol. 8, No. 2). Seattle, WA: University of Washington.