Tanoan

American  

[tah-noh-uhn] / ˈtɑ noʊ ən /

noun

1. an American Indian language family of which the three surviving languages are spoken in several pueblos, including Taos, in northern New Mexico near the Rio Grande.

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Etymology

Origin of Tanoan

Coined by J.W. Powell in 1891 as Tañoan, based on American Spanish Tagno ( see -an); gn misinterpreted as equivalent to Spanish ñ, variant of Tano, ethnic name of Southern Tewa subgroup of Tanoans, from Southern Tewa tʰá·nu

Example Sentences

The consanguinity of this phratry may have been close to that of the Shoshonean tribes, as that of the Patki was to the Piman, or the Asa to the Tanoan.

From Archeological Expedition to Arizona in 1895 Seventeenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1895-1896, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1898, pages 519-744 by Fewkes, Jesse Walter

In fact, there is no Tusayan ruin which resembles it in ground plan, except Payüpki, a Tanoan town of much later construction.

From Archeological Expedition to Arizona in 1895 Seventeenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1895-1896, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1898, pages 519-744 by Fewkes, Jesse Walter

A house building people of the Tanoan Group, Rio Grande valley, N. M. Te-get-ha Taos Pueblo, N. M. One of the best examples of the terraced, five storied, pre-Columbian architecture, still inhabited.

From The Flute of the Gods by Ryan, Marah Ellis

According to Niel, 4,000 Tanoan refugees, under Frasquillo, loaded with booty which they had looted from the churches, went to Oraibi by way of Zuñi, and there established a "kingdom," with their chief as ruler.

From Archeological Expedition to Arizona in 1895 Seventeenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1895-1896, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1898, pages 519-744 by Fewkes, Jesse Walter

Among these arrivals were Tanoan warriors and their families, part of whom were ancestors of the present inhabitants of Hano.

From Archeological Expedition to Arizona in 1895 Seventeenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1895-1896, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1898, pages 519-744 by Fewkes, Jesse Walter