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HEBUANO

A Timucua Language Resource Guide

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Hebuano!

Welcome to Hebuano, an open-access, pedagogical resource for Timucua language materials. Timucua, an Indigenous language isolate spoken in what is now northern Florida and southern Georgia, once had more than 200,000 speakers. Most of the materials documenting this language come from a corpus of documents written in the 16th and 17th century by Spanish missionaries and Native authors. This site is part of an ongoing conversation about how to read, understand, teach, and share materials in Timucua.

Etymology

The noun hebuano means “word” or “language” in Timucua. It is derived from the verb hebua “to speak” with a noun-making suffix -no. Click here to visit its entry in the Timucua Webonary and learn more!

News

November 2023: The Florida Times-Union showcased the work of Dr. Aaron Broadwell https://www.jacksonville.com/story/news/local/2023/11/24/the-language-spoken-by-the-timucua-of-florida-still-lives-on/71598312007/

The NPR Podcast Bygone Jax: Our Unsung History features the work of Dr. Denise Bossy and Dr. Keith Ashley on Mocama

Dr. Aaron Broadwell and Dr. Alejandra Dubcovsky were also interviewed by Matt Soergel of the Florida Times-Union in ”Unspoken for 2 centuries: Bringing the indigenous Timucuan language back to life”

October 2023: Listen to the latest episode of the podcast The Allusionist, Episode 183: Timucua featuring interviews with Broadwell and Dubcovsky

The Florida Times-Union showcases the impressive new work on Fort Caroline by Dr. Denise Bossy and Dr. Keith Ashley
UNF professors receive NEH research grant, will reveal findings of the Mocama people

September 2023: Alejandra Dubcovsky and George Aaron Broadwell publish “Anohebasisiro Nimanibota / We Want to Talk to the Honored One”: Timucua Language and its Uses, Silences, and Protests” in Native American and Indigenous Studies, Volume 10, Issue 2, Fall 2023, pp. 69-100.

July 2023: Uncovering indigenous authors in colonial manuscripts: posted by Linguistic Discovery https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HArUXuug1P4

May 2023: Introducing Indigenous Florida, a new history of present-day Jacksonville that more accurately includes the perspectives of the Mocamas, Guales, Yamasees, and their ancestors. Click here to visit this new site from Hebuano colleagues Denise Bossy and Keith Ashley of UNF and, when you go to Fort Caroline and the Timucuan Preserve, follow along with their Indigenous digital walking tour featuring Timucua vocabulary.

Smithsonian Magazine interviews Aaron Broadwell & Alejandra Dubcovsky about the Timucua language

April 2023: Members of the Hebuano Project recently presented at the Franciscan Florida Colloquium on March 24-26. See our presentations below: