יורוק

Yurok (Pulik'la') is one of the two surviving members of the Algic family's "Ritwan" branch (the other being Wiyot, now extinct as L1 since 1962). The Algic family comprises Algonquian (~30 living languages of eastern/central North America), Wiyot, and Yurok — Yurok and Wiyot were spoken in northwestern California, vast distances from the main Algonquian homelands, posing one of the great puzzles of historical linguistics. Modern Yurok is an active language revitalization success story: tribal language programs, the Yurok Tribal Court (which conducts proceedings partly in Yurok), and the Hoopa Valley High School Yurok program produce ~50 young speakers. Linguistically, Yurok preserves classic Algic features (animate-inanimate noun gender, polysynthetic verbs) but shows considerable divergence from Algonquian.