Timucua Language - Dialects

Dialects

Father Pareja named nine or ten dialects, each spoken by one or more tribes in northeast Florida and southeast Georgia:

1. Timucua proper – Northern Utina tribe, between the lower (northern) St. Johns River and the Suwannee River, north of the Santa Fe River in Florida and into southern Georgia.
2. Potano – Potano, Yustaga and possibly Ocale tribes, between the Aucilla River and the Suwannee River in Florida and extending into southern Georgia, but not along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico (with the possible exception of the mouth of the Suwannee River), between the Suwannee River and the Oklawaha River south of the Santa Fe River, extending south into the area between the Oklawaha River and the Withlacoochee River.
3. Itafi (or Icafui) – Icafui/Cascange and Ibi tribes, in southeast Georgia, along the coast north of Cumberland Island north to the Altamaha River and inland west of the Yufera tribe.
4. Yufera – Yufera tribe, in southeast Georgia, on the mainland west of Cumberland Island.
5. Mocama (Timucua for 'ocean') (called Agua Salada in Hann 1996 and elsewhere) – Mocama, including the Tacatacuru (on Cumberland Island in Georgia) and the Saturiwa (in what is now Jacksonville) tribes, along the Atlantic coast of Florida from the St. Marys River to below the mouth of the St. Johns River, including the lowest part of the St. Johns River.
6. Agua Salada (Spanish for 'salt water' (Maritime in Hann 1996) – tribal affiliation unclear, the Atlantic coast in the vicinity of St. Augustine and inland to the adjacent stretch of the St. Johns River.
7. Tucururu – uncertain, possibly in south-central Florida (a village called Tucuru was "forty leagues from St. Augustine").
8. Agua Fresca (or Agua Dulce; Spanish for "fresh water") – Agua Dulce people (Agua Fresca, or "Freshwater"), including the Utina chiefdom, along the lower St. Johns River, north of Lake George.
9. Acuera – Acuera tribe, on the upper reaches of the Oklawaha River and around Lake Weir.
10. Oconi – Oconi tribe (not to be confused with the Muskogean speaking Oconee tribe), "three days travel" from Cumberland Island, possibly around the Okefenokee Swamp.

All of the linguistic documentation is from the Mocama and Potano dialects.

Scholars do not agree as to the number of dialects. Some scholars, including Jerald T. Milanich and Edgar H. Sturtevant, have taken Pareja's Agua Salada (saltwater) as an alternate name for the well-attested Mocama dialect (mocama is Timucua for "ocean"). As such, Mocama is often referred to as Agua Salada in the literature. This suggestion would put the number of dialects attested by Pareja at nine. Others, including Julian Granberry, argue that the two names referred to separate dialects, with Agua Salada being spoken in an unknown area of coastal Florida.

Additionally, John R. Swanton identified the language spoken by the Tawasa of Alabama as a dialect of Timucua. This identification was based on a 60-word vocabulary list compiled from a man named Lamhatty, who was recorded in Virginia in 1708. Lamhatty did not speak any language known in Virginia, but was said to have related that he had been kidnapped by the Tuscarora nine months earlier from a town called Towasa, and sold to colonists in Virginia. Lamhatty has been identified as a Timucua speaker, but John Hann calls the evidence of his origin as a Tawasa "tenuous".