Home

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

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:

• Unearthing Mocama Landscapes, Writing Mocama History
  Keith Ashley & Denise I. Bossy
• Who (or what) is Utina? Understanding Timucua Names and Titles
  George Aaron Broadwell & Alejandra Dubcovsky
• The Corrections: Language Learning in Pareja’s 1614 Arte (link)
  Dani Katenkamp & Doug Henning