Naolan is an

extinct language An extinct language or dead language is a language with no living native speakers. A dormant language is a dead language that still serves as a symbol of ethnic identity to an ethnic group; these languages are often undergoing a process of r ...

that was spoken a five-hour walk away from Tula, Tamaulipas in northeast

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

. 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