History
Wichita is a member of the Caddoan language family, along with modern Caddo, Pawnee, Arikara, and Kitsai. When the Europeans began to settle North America, Wichita separated into three dialects; Waco, Towakoni, and KirikirÉi:s (aka, Wichita Proper). However, when the language was threatened and the number of speakers decreased, dialect differences largely disappeared While at present there is one living native speaker, as late as 2007 there were three living native speakers. This is a sharp decline from the 500 speakers estimated by Paul L. Garvin in 1950.
Read more about this topic: Wichita Language
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Every literary critic believes he will outwit history and have the last word.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“He wrote in prison, not a History of the World, like Raleigh, but an American book which I think will live longer than that. I do not know of such words, uttered under such circumstances, and so copiously withal, in Roman or English or any history.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“False history gets made all day, any day,
the truth of the new is never on the news
False history gets written every day
...
the lesbian archaeologist watches herself
sifting her own life out from the shards she’s piecing,
asking the clay all questions but her own.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)