While French missionary priests François de Montigny[REF] and Jean-François Buisson de Saint-Cosme[REF] stated that the Taensa spoke Natchez, a language that both missionaries were learning, others, such as Mooney describe the Taensa language as a variant of the Natchez.
The Taensa spoken by these people was a form of the Natchez, a language isolate that may be related to the Muskogean languages.