Naolan is an

extinct language An extinct language is a language that no longer has any speakers, especially if the language has no living descendants. In contrast, a dead language is one that is no longer the native language of any community, even if it is still in use, l ...

that was spoken a five-hour walk away from

Tula, Tamaulipas Tula is a town located in Tula Municipality in the state of Tamaulipas. History The city was founded on 22 July 1617 by the Franciscan friar Juan Baptist of Mollinedo thus usually is considered the oldest city in the state of Tamaulipas. In 201 ...

in northeast

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

. It is only known from 48 words and several phrases collected in the 1940s, and was nearly extinct at that time (Weitlaner 1948).Weitlaner, Roberto J.. 1948. Un Idioma Desconocido del Norte de México. In ''Actes du XXVIII Congrès International de Américanistes'', 205-227. Paris.

Classification

Naolán has been compared to numerous languages, but none are obviously close and there is not enough data to spot more distant relationships. Six of the words are Spanish loans, five more appear to be loans from neighboring languages, and another four are suspected loans, leaving little to work with. Campbell (1979, 1997) therefore considers it unclassified.

Vocabulary

Weitlaner's (1948) word list of Naolan is reproduced below. The words had been collected from multiple informants, who were Román Rochas, Procopio Medrano Silva, Febronio Saenz, María Hernández, and Mariano Saenz.

Phrases

Naolan phrases from Weitlaner (1948):

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Naolan Language Unclassified languages of North America Indigenous languages of Mexico Languages extinct in the 1950s Extinct languages of North America