Tawasa
Teouachi
Native to	United States
Region	easternAlabama
Ethnicity	Tawasa people
Extinct	18th century
Language family	Timucuan? Tawasa
Language codes
ISO 639-3	None (mis)
Linguist List	tjm-taw
Glottolog	None
Pre-contact distribution of the Timucua language (Florida) and Tawasa
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Tawasa is an extinctNative American language. Ostensibly the language of theTawasa people of what is nowAlabama, it is known exclusively through a word list attributed to a Tawasa named Lamhatty, collected in 1707.

John Swanton studied the Lamhatty word list and identified the language as aTimucuan dialect, suggesting it was intermediary between Timucua andMuskogean. This opinion has been the subject of significant scholarly debate, with some such asJulian Granberry considering it a dialect of Timucua, others arguing it was a distinct language in the Timucua family, and yet others such as John Hann doubting that Lamhatty was a Tawasa at all. The language shows significantAlabama influence, including the Muskogean same-subject suffix-t.

In 1707 an Indian named Lamhatty arrived in the British colony ofVirginia, eventually arriving at the estate of Colonel John Walker. Taking an interest in him, Walker introduced him to colonial historianRobert Beverley. Through an interpreter, Lamhatty explained that he was from the village ofTawasa near the Gulf of Mexico. He had been captured and enslaved by theTuscarora, who had transported him eastward and had sold him to theSavannah people. He had escaped and had traveled north to Virginia. Walker recorded the 60-word lexicon he had learned from Lamhatty on the back of a letter, while Beverley wrote an account of Lamhatty's story. According to Beverley, Walker began treating Lamhatty like a slave once he learned other Tawasa were enslaved. Lamhatty escaped and went into the woods, never to be heard from again.^[1]

There has been scholarly debate about the place of Tawasa among languages. Studying the word list in the early 20th century,John Swanton noted the similarity with theTimucua language, and suggested Tawasa was an intermediary withMuskogean. Linguist Julian Granberry identifies it as a dialect of Timucua.^[2] Others, such as John Hann, are skeptical of the accuracy of Beverley's account. He questions whether Lamhatty was a Tawasa at all.^[3]

Tawasa words are a bit difficult to make out, due to English respellings. For example,oo, ou corresponds to Timucuau,ough too,eu toyu, and oftene, ee to Timucuai. Tawasaw corresponds to Timucuab, which was probably pronounced[β]. Timucuac, q were[k];qu was[kʷ]. Some of the following correspondences have a finalt in Tawasa, which appears to be a Muskogean suffix. Others appear to have the Timucuacopula-la. Timucua forms are Mocama dialect.

Correspondences with Muskogean and Timucua are,

Althoughássick 'moon' appears to be an Alabama form, its compounds are Timucuan:

• Timucua language
• Indigenous languages of the North American Southeast
• Extinct languages of North America
• Native American history of Alabama
• Native American history of Florida
• Languages extinct in the 18th century
• Unclassified languages of North America

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• Short description matches Wikidata
• Language articles with Linglist code
• Languages without Glottolog code
• Languages without ISO 639-3 code but with Linguist List code
• Language articles with unreferenced extinction date
• Languages with neither ISO nor Glottolog code
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