Claims of links with the neighbouring Algonquian language family date back at least to Robert Gordon Latham in 1862.

From 1968 onwards, John Hewson has put forth evidence of sound correspondences and shared morphology with Proto-Algonquian and other better-documented Algonquian languages.

[3] Owing to this overall lack of meaningful evidence, Ives Goddard and Lyle Campbell claim that any connections between Beothuk and Algonquian are unknown and likely unknowable.

[4] In 1910, American anthropologist Frank Speck recorded a 74-year-old native woman named Santu Toney singing a song purported to be in the language.

Some sources give the year 1929, but the 1910 date is confirmed in Speck's book Beothuk and Micmac (New York 1922, p. 67).

[5] James P. Howley, Director of the Geological Survey of Newfoundland, who for more than forty years was interested in the history of the Beothuk, doubted (in 1914) the truthfulness of Santu Toney.