Woccon language
| Woccon | |
|---|---|
| Native to | United States |
| Region | North Carolina; possibly later New York |
| Ethnicity | Woccon, possibly Waccamaw |
| Extinct | early 18th century |
| Revival | 2020s |
Siouan-Catawban
| |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | xwc |
| Glottolog | wocc1242 |
| Linguasphere | 64-ABA-aa |
 Original distribution of the Woccon language | |
Woccon was one of two attested Catawban languages of what is now the Eastern United States. It is attested only in a vocabulary of 143 words, printed in a 1709 compilation by English colonist John Lawson of Carolina. The Woccon people that Lawson encountered have been considered by some scholars, including John R. Swanton, to have possibly been a late subdivision of the Waccamaw. Contemporary linguists and researchers have been unable to resolve whether Woccon directly represents the language of the historic Waccamaw people, as opposed to representing a related Catawban language.
The Woccon are believed to have been decimated as a people during the Tuscarora War in the Carolinas with English colonists in 1713. Survivors were likely absorbed into the Tuscarora, an Iroquoian-speaking people, who subsequently migrated north to New York, settling with the five nations of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy by 1722 and being accepted as the sixth. Under these pressures, the Woccon language is believed to have become extinct in the eighteenth century. Thus, some descendants of Woccon ancestry possibly survive among the Tuscarora, including Canada where many Haudenosaunee were forced to flee to after the American Revolutionary War.