Hitha (Yta) is a province ruled by…

Hitha (Yta) is a province ruled by Datha, possibly Etiwaw (Eutaw), a Cusabo subtribe.

The language spoken by the Cusabo is virtually unknown and now extinct.

It did not appear to be related to other known language families on the North American continent.

There is evidence that at least five tribes on the coast, in the territory from the lower Savannah to the Wando River (east of Charleston), spoke a common language which was different from the Guale and Sewee languages of neighboring peoples.

It is likely the Ashepoo, Combahee, Escamaçu, Etiwan, and Kiawah also spoke this language, which has been referred to as Cusaboan.

Only a few words (mostly town names) of this language will be recorded in the sixteenth century by the French explorer René Goulaine de Laudonnière. (One example is Skorrye or Skerry, meaning "bad" or "enemy").

Most words lack translations.

Approximately one hundred place names and twelve personal names in Cusabo have survived.

The place names do not seem to be related to Algonquian, Iroquoian, Muskogean languages or Siouan languages used by other South Carolina coastal and Piedmont tribes. (In places where the Sewee and Santee live, the place names are in the Catawban languages.)

John R. Swanton thought that the bou or boo element, presumably the same bou in the Cusabo word Westo boe meaning "Westoe River", which occurs in many coastal place names, is related to the Choctaw -bok (river).

He speculated that Cusabo was related to the Muskogean family.

Later scholars think this relation of sounds might have been a coincidence without meaning, especially since the older Choctaw form was bayok (small river, river forming part of a delta).

They believe that Cusabo was a different language.

Blair Rudes has suggested that the ⟨-bo⟩ suffix and other evidence may indicate a relationship to the Arawakan languages of the Caribbean indigenous peoples.

If true, it would mean that parts of the Atlantic Coast may have been settled by indigenous peoples from the Caribbean islands.