Frances Johnson (1835-1934) was the last living fluent speaker of the
Takelma language
Takelma was the language spoken by the Latgawa and Takelma people and Cow Creek band of Upper Umpqua. It was first extensively described by Edward Sapir in his graduate thesis, ''The Takelma Language of Southwestern Oregon''. The last fluent s ...
of
Oregon, United States. While living on the
Siletz Reservation
The Siletz Reservation is a 5.852 sq mi (15.157 km²) Indian reservation in Lincoln County, Oregon, United States, owned by the Confederated Tribes of Siletz. The reservation is made up of numerous non-contiguous parcels of land in east-centra ...
, during the summer of 1906 she worked for six weeks as language consultant with linguist
Edward Sapir to document the language. Sapir gives her Takelma name as Gwísgwashãn (phonemically Kʷìskʷasá:n, possibly derived from ''kʷìskʷas'' "chipmunk").
Sapir reports that in 1906, "the number of individuals that can be said to have anything like a fluent speaking knowledge of
akelmais quite inconsiderable, barely more than a handful in fact." He describes Johnson as "an elderly full-blood Takelma woman", born in a village called Takʰts'asín or Taltaníkʰ, located near Jump Off Joe Creek (Ti:p'o:lts'ìlta) in Oregon. Her mother came from a village on the upper course of
Cow creek. Sapir comments that he found her "an exceptionally intelligent and good-humored informant".
The cooperation between Johnson and Sapir produced the two central publications on the Takelma language, a collection of texts with English translations and wordlist and a grammatical description. These two sources contain a rich amount of data, and as a result Takelma can be considered a well-documented language.
During the late 1850s, Johnson lived together with
Philip Sheridan during part of his tour of duty in the then
Oregon Territory.
See also
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Takelma language
Takelma was the language spoken by the Latgawa and Takelma people and Cow Creek band of Upper Umpqua. It was first extensively described by Edward Sapir in his graduate thesis, ''The Takelma Language of Southwestern Oregon''. The last fluent s ...
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Takelma people
References
Cited works
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Johnson, Frances
Year of birth missing
19th-century births
1934 deaths
20th-century Native Americans
Indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest
Last known speakers of a Native American language
Takelma people