Chumashan

Chumashan is a small language family, with no proven relatives elsewhere, spoken along the central California coast from San Luis Obispo to Malibu, in nearby valleys and on the northern Channel Islands. It may be one of the oldest language families established in California. Six members are recorded, joined by a dialect continuum on the mainland; plank canoes called tomol, adopted in the first millennium, linked the island villages to the coast.

Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo made the first European contact in 1542, but colonization began only in 1772 with Mission San Luis Obispo, followed by other missions, after which the languages came to be known by their names.

Forced resettlement and epidemics shattered the Chumash communities, and in 1824 mission Chumash, joined by Yokuts allies, rose in the largest organized revolt of California's Spanish and Mexican period.