The Obituary
Beothuk was spoken by the Beothuk people, the original inhabitants of the island of Newfoundland. Decimated by European settlement, disease, starvation, and conflict, the nation dwindled to a handful of survivors in the early 19th century. The last known Beothuk, a woman named Shanawdithit, died of tuberculosis in St. John’s in 1829, and the language died with her. Only a few short word lists remain, some taken from Shanawdithit, leaving its classification uncertain and its sound forever lost.
Worth remembering
- Nearly all that survives of Beothuk are a few word lists, several recorded from Shanawdithit herself.
- Its relationship to other languages, even neighbouring Algonquian ones, has never been firmly established.
Sources
A graveyard tradition: leave a stone to show you came, and remembered.