Wiyot people

The Wiyot people (Chetco-Tolowa: wee-’at Yurok: weyet ) are an indigenous people of California living near Humboldt Bay, California and a small surrounding area. They are culturally similar to the Yurok people. Today, there are approximately 450 Wiyot people. They are enrolled in several federally recognized tribes, such as the Wiyot Tribe (also known as the Table Bluff Reservation—Wiyot Tribe), Bear River Band of the Rohnerville Rancheria, Blue Lake Rancheria, and the Cher-Ae Heights Indian Community of the Trinidad Rancheria.

History

The Wiyot and Yurok are the westernmost people to speak an Algic language. Their languages, Wiyot and Yurok, are distantly related to the Algonquian languages. The Wiyot people's traditional homeland ranged from Mad River through Humboldt Bay (including the present cities of Eureka and Arcata) to the lower Eel River basin. Inland, their territory was heavily forested in ancient redwood. Their stretch of shoreland was mostly sandy, composed of dunes and tidal marsh.

Wiyot language

Wiyot (also Wishosk) is an extinct Algic language, formerly spoken by the Wiyot people of Humboldt Bay, California. The language's last native speaker, Della Prince, died in 1962.

Wiyot, along with its geographical neighbor Yurok, were first identified as relatives of the Algonquin languages by Edward Sapir in 1913, though this classification was disputed for decades in what came to be known as the "Ritwan controversy". Due to the enormous geographical separation of Wiyot and Yurok from all other Algonquin languages, the validity of their genetic link was hotly contested by leading Americanist linguists; as Ives Goddard put it, the issue "has profound implications for the prehistory of North America". However, by the 1950s, the genetic relationship between the Algonquin languages and Wiyot and Yurok had been established to the satisfaction of most, if not all, researchers, giving rise to the term "Algic" to refer to the Algonquin languages together with Wiyot and Yurok.

Some Wiyots are attempting a revival of the language.

Wiyot (disambiguation)

Wiyot may refer to: