Marie Desma Wilcox (November 24, 1933 – September 25, 2021) Als

, October 9, 2021. was a Native American who was the last native speaker of

Wukchumni The Wukchumni () are a Yokuts tribe of California with about 200 members, residing on the Tule River Reservation. 3000 years ago, they broke off from the main Yokuts group and settled in the region of the east fork of the Kaweah River. History Appr ...

, a dialect of Tule-Kaweah, which is a Yokutsan

indigenous language An indigenous language, or autochthonous language, is a language that is native to a region and spoken by indigenous peoples. This language is from a linguistically distinct community that originated in the area. Indigenous languages are not neces ...

spoken by the

Tule-Kaweah Yokuts Tule-Kaweah is a Yokuts dialect of California. Wukchumni, the last surviving dialect, had only one native or fluent speaker, Marie Wilcox (both native and fluent), who compiled a dictionary of the language.

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

. She worked for more than 20 years on a dictionary of the language and taught it.

Life

Wilcox was born on a ranch in

Visalia, California Visalia ( ) is a city in the agricultural San Joaquin Valley of California. The population was 141,384 as per the 2020 census. Visalia is the fifth-largest city in the San Joaquin Valley, the 42nd most populous in California, and 192nd in ...

, the youngest of seven children of Beatrice Arancis and Alex Wilcox, a farm hand. She was raised by her grandparents in a one-room house in the Venice Hills and after completing

eighth grade Eighth grade (or grade eight in some regions) is the eighth post-kindergarten year of formal education in the US. The eighth grade is the ninth school year, the second, third, fourth, or final year of middle school, or the second and/or final ye ...

, she also became a farm hand and a fruit packer. With Joe Garcia, she had four daughters and a son. She lived in

Woodlake, California Woodlake is a city in the San Joaquin Valley in Tulare County, California, United States. The population was 7,279 at the 2010 census, up from 6,651 at the 2000 census. In 1912, the city of Woodlake was founded by Gilbert F. Stevenson. Geograph ...

and died in a hospital in Visalia after her aorta ruptured when she was leaving a grandson's birthday party.

Wukchumni language

Wilcox's grandmother spoke Wukchumni; after her death, Wilcox began working on a dictionary of the language as a tribute, with computer and other assistance from Nicholas Luna, an

Apache The Apache () are a group of culturally related Native American tribes in the Southwestern United States, which include the Chiricahua, Jicarilla, Lipan, Mescalero, Mimbreño, Ndendahe (Bedonkohe or Mogollon and Nednhi or Carrizaleño an ...

. She included sound recordings of each word in the dictionary, and after the appearance in 2014 of a documentary on her work in the ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

op-ed An op-ed, short for "opposite the editorial page", is a written prose piece, typically published by a North-American newspaper or magazine, which expresses the opinion of an author usually not affiliated with the publication's editorial board. O ...

section, her family and other members of their tribe became interested in reviving the language. She and her daughter taught it; at her death Wilcox was teaching classes at the Owens Valley Career Development Center, which are to continue. The dictionary was copyrighted in 2019, but is unpublished. As of 2014, it was estimated that the Wukchumni tribe had fewer than 200 members. In the early 2010s, when a relative died, Wilcox became the last remaining fluent speaker; at her death, there were at least three, including one of her daughters.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wilcox, Marie 1933 births 2021 deaths 20th-century Native American women 20th-century Native Americans American lexicographers Linguists from the United States Women linguists American women non-fiction writers People from Visalia, California Last known speakers of a Native American language 21st-century Native American women 21st-century Native Americans Native American women writers