| Okwanuchu | |
| States: | United States |
| Region: | northern California |
| Ethnicity: | Okwanuchu |
| Familycolor: | American |
| Fam1: | Hokan ? |
| Fam2: | Shasta–Palaihnihan |
| Fam3: | Shastan |
| Fam4: | Shasta proper? |
| Iso3: | none |
| Glotto: | okwa1235 |
| Glottorefname: | Okwanuchu |
| Era: | last attested 1930s |
Okwanuchu is an extinct Shastan language formerly spoken in northern California. Kroeber described the language as "peculiar. Many words are practically pure Shasta; others are distorted to the very verge of recognizability, or utterly different." Golla[1] speculates at length that the language may have mixed in another, non-Shasta language. Du Bois,[2] interviewing a survivor of a group that the Wintu called Waymaq ("north people"), who she believed were probably identical to the Okwanuchu, recorded some words, including atsa ("water").[1] Golla writes that eighteen more words are found, under the name "Wailaki [also meaning 'North People'] on McCloud", in an 1884 work by Jeremiah Curtin; he too recorded atsa ("water"), and five words not found elsewhere in Shastan.[1]