= Costano, Latham in Trans. Philolog. Soc. Lond., 82, 1856 (includes
the Ahwastes, Olhones or Costanos, Romonans, Tulornos, Altatmos).
Latham, Opuscula, 348, 1860.
< Mutsun, Gatschet in Mag. Am. Hist., 157, 1877 (includes Ahwastes,
Olhones, Altahmos, Romonans, Tulomos). Powell in Cont. N.A. Eth., III,
535, 1877 (includes under this family vocabs. of Costano, Mutsun,
Santa Clara, Santa Cruz).
Derivation: From the Spanish costano, “coast-men.”
Under this group name Latham included five tribes, given above, which
were under the supervision of the Mission Dolores. He gives a few words
of the Romonan language, comparing it with Tshokoyem which he finds to
differ markedly. He finally expresses the opinion that, notwithstanding
the resemblance of a few words, notably personal pronouns, to Tshokoyem
of the Moquelumnan group, the affinities of the dialects of the Costano
are with the Salinas group, with which, however, he does not unite it
but prefers to keep it by itself. Later, in 1877, Mr. Gatschet,[34]
under the family name Mutsun, united the Costano dialects with the ones
classified by Latham under Moquelumnan. This arrangement was followed by
Powell in his classification of vocabularies.[35] More recent comparison
of all the published material by Mr. Curtin, of the Bureau, revealed
very decided and apparently radical differences between the two groups
of dialects. In 1888 Mr. H. W. Henshaw visited the coast to the north
and south of San Francisco, and obtained a considerable body of
linguistic material for further comparison. The result seems fully
to justify the separation of the two groups as distinct families.
[Footnote 34: Mag. Am. Hist., 1877, p. 157.]
[Footnote 35: Cont. N.A. Eth., 1877, vol. 3, p. 535.]