Gulf languages

Gulf was proposed as a language family by Mary Haas (Haas 1951, 1952), but the family has not been rigorously established by the comparative method. Historical linguists such as Lyle Campbell (Campbell and Mithun 1979, Campbell 1997) list the relationship as unproven, though a number of Muskogean scholars believe that Muskogean is at least related to Natchez (Campbell 1997:305). However, the Gulf hypothesis is considered by a number of specialists on Muskogean languages, including Mary Haas and Pamela Munro. Munro (1995) has regarded the hypothesis of a Gulf family of languages as promising; Haas thought the closest language to Muskogean would be Natchez, followed by Tunica, Atakapa, and, rather dubiously, Chitimacha. A difficulty in evaluating the hypothesis is the lack of available data. Most of the data on Chitimacha and Natchez is still unpublished and held in archives. Additionally, Haas (1958) proposed that the Gulf languages are related to the Algonquian languages. ==Lexical comparisons==

Lexical comparisons by Kimball (1994) showing areal similarities among the "Gulf" languages: : : : : : : : : : : : Comparisons with Algonquian Some lexical similarities between the Algonquian and Gulf languages given by Haas (1958): : ==Pronominal comparisons==

Below are pronouns comparisons by Geoffrey Kimball (1994) showing areal similarities among the "Gulf" languages. Note that Tunica distinguishes masculine and feminine pronominal forms. : : : : : ==See also==