Okwanuchu is an extinct Shastan language formerly spoken in northern California. Kroeber described the language as "peculiar. Many words are practically pure Shasta; others are distorted to the very verge of recognizability, or utterly different." Golla[2] speculates at length that the language may have mixed in another, non-Shasta language. Du Bois,[3] interviewing a survivor of a group that the Wintu called Waymaq ("north people"), who she believed were probably identical to the Okwanuchu, recorded some words, including atsa ("water").[2] Golla writes that eighteen more words are found, under the name "Wailaki [also meaning 'North People'] on McCloud", in an 1884 work by Jeremiah Curtin; he too recorded atsa ("water"), and five words not found elsewhere in Shastan.[2]
^Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Okwanuchu". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
^ abcVictor Golla California Indian languages (2011)
Languages of California
