In
John Wesley Powell's 1891 classification of
North American languages, Comecrudo was grouped together with the
Cotoname and
Coahuilteco languages into a family called
Coahuiltecan.
John R. Swanton (1915) grouped together the Comecrudo, Cotoname, Coahuilteco,
Karankawa,
Tonkawa,
Atakapa, and
Maratino languages into a Coahuiltecan grouping.
Edward Sapir (1920) accepted Swanton's proposal and grouped this hypothetical Coahuiltecan into his
Hokan stock. After these proposals, documentation of the Garza and Mamulique languages was brought to light, and Goddard (1979) believes that there is sufficient similarity between them and Comecrudan for them to be considered genetically related. He rejects all other relationships. Powell's original Coahuiltecan, renamed Pakawan and extended with Garza and Mamulique, has been defended by Manaster Ramer (1996), who also sees a relationship with Karankawa probable and Atakapa as a more distant possibility. This proposal has been challenged by Campbell, who considers its sound correspondences unsupported and considers that some of the observed similarities between words may be due to borrowing. ==Evidence==