Talk:Timucua language

Can anyone be sure about only five vowels?
The article points out that /f/ and /B(beta)/ may be /(bilabial f)/ and /b/ respectively, as the Spanish spoken at the time of colonization, especially regarding/f/ would have been in a transitional process. Additionally, Spanish, having the só called "5 pure vowels" may end up coloring the listener's ability to distinguish a sound like /æ/ or /œ/ or /y/ if these did not occur in his language...

Therefore, how can we be sure that there were only five vowels? Maybe there were seven, but to the Spanish ear a schwa or open o would just merge with an /a/ or /o/ respectively. Or, supposing there were only five,  maybe they were all slightly different than the five Spanish vowels, the chronicler lacking IPA or special diacritics to denote such differences would then fall on the orthography he knew.

Whether I'm accurate in my analysis or not, I think it should be noted somehow...either they know these 5 were the vowel inventory, or, that the Franciscan monk made notes in the margin about how /o/ was similar to the /open-o/ of a gallego or the /u/ was reminiscent of the "u" (so /y/, essentially) of a Frenchman, etc. 50.144.2.5 (talk) 19:19, 26 October 2014 (UTC)Tom in South Florida

You are correct that we cannot know if there were vowel distinctions that the Spanish missionaries did not hear. Pareja in his Arte says that there are five vowels, but we cannot be certain that he was correct. G.broadwell (talk) 20:13, 2 September 2017 (UTC)

Timucua is clearly NOT an isolate !
This entire category of supposed language isolated is absolutely infested with biased edits that push the clearly false belief that these languages are isolates. This article is simply another one of those. Nestofbirdnests (talk) 01:41, 14 April 2023 (UTC)


 * Language isolates exist. Other languages that are isolates include Basque, Sumerian, Zuni, Tiwi, etc. See for yourself. Fdom5997 (talk) 01:44, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
 * @Fdom5997 That doesn't mean all of these are isolates. Yes, those listed are infact and undeniably isolates, but the rest, oh they are cleariy hoaxes! Nestofbirdnests (talk) 01:46, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Well, show me a source that proves that please, and stop harassing the edits that I’ve contributed here. Just because you personally don’t like being proved wrong, doesn’t mean you can be bitter and toxic towards me. Fdom5997 (talk) 01:48, 14 April 2023 (UTC)