Eastern Algonquian languages
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| Eastern Algonquian
Eastern Algonkian
|
|
|---|---|
| Geographic distribution: |
Atlantic Coast of North America |
| Genetic classification: |
Algic Algonquian Eastern Algonquian |
| Subdivisions: |
Quiripi-Naugatuck
|
The Eastern Algonquian languages are a subgroup of the larger Algonquian family, itself a member of the Algic family; prior to European contact, the family consisted of around 17 languages, which stretched from Newfoundland south into North Carolina. Eastern Algonquian languages descend from a putative proto-language, Proto-Eastern Algonquian. While Algonquian languages are often grouped into three large groups based on shared similarities (Plains Algonquian, Central Algonquian, and Eastern Algonquian), only Eastern Algonquian constitutes a separate genetic subgroup.
Although the Algonquian language family was once one of the largest in America, extending from Manitoba to the eastern seaboard and down to North Carolina, and survival for the early English settlers required their learning the language, when the English became dominant, they stopped learning the language. The Algonquians, however, who had a long tradition of bilingualism, learned English; in time, English became so dominant in the mixed society that speaking most of the Algonquian languages died out virtually completely. [1]
According to Blair Rudes, a specialist in past and present American Indian languages from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte,
- For the most part, subjects would come first, objects would come second, verbs would come last. But sometimes objects would come after verbs. Adverbs would frequently come at the very beginning of a sentence. [1]
- ...
- The Algonquian are among the easier [Native American languages] in terms of pronunciation for a European. They tend to be somewhat like Spanish, for example, in terms of having a consonant-vowel-consonant-vowel structure. This is one of the reasons why the English borrowed quite a number of words from the Algonquian language that we still have today, like pecan, opossum, and moccasins. [1]
Contents |
[edit] Family division
The languages are listed below along with dialects and subdialects. This classification follows Goddard (1996, 1997) and Mithun (1999).
1. Míkmaq (also known as Micmac, Mi’kmaq, Mi’gmaq, or Mi’kmaw)
I. Abenakian
- 2. Eastern Abnaki (also known as Abenaki or Abenaki-Penobscot)
-
- Penobscot (also known as Old Town or Old Town Penobscot)
- Caniba
- Aroosagunticook
- Pigwacket
-
- 3. Western Abnaki (also known as Abnaki, St. Francis, Abenaki, or Abenaki-Penobscot)
- 4. Malecite-Passamaquoddy (also known as Maliseet-Passamquoddy)
-
- Maliseet (also known as Malecite)
- Passamaquoddy
-
5. Etchemin (uncertain - See Note 1)
II. Southern New England
- 6. Wampanoag (also known as Massachusett)
-
- North Shore
- Natick
- Wampanoag
- Nauset
- Cowesit
-
- 7. Loup A (probably Nipmuck) (uncertain - See Note 1)
- 8. Loup B (uncertain - See Note 1)
- 9. Mohegan-Montauk-Narragansett
-
- Mohegan
- Pequot
- Narragansett
- Niantic
- Montauk
- Shinnecock (uncertain)
-
- 10. Quiripi-Naugatuck-Unquachog (also known as Quiripi-Unquachog)
III. Delawarean
14. Nanticoke
-
- Nanticoke
- Choptank
15. Piscataway (also known as Conoy)
16. Carolina Algonquian (also known as Pamlico, Pamtico, Pampticough, Christianna Algonquian)
17. Powhatan (also known as Virginia Algonquian)
[edit] Notes
1. Etchemin and Loup were ethnographic terms used inconsistently by French colonists and missionaries. There is some debate whether distinct groups could ever have been identified with those names.
Etchemin is only known from a list of numbers from people living between the St. John and Kennebec Rivers recorded in 1609 by Marc Lescarbot. The numbers in this list share features in common with different Algonquian languages from Massachusetts to New Brunswick, but as a set do not match any other known Algonquian language. Certain intriguiguing similarities between the Etchimin list and Wampanoag might suggest that languages closely related to Wampanoag might have been spoken as far north as the coast of Maine in the precontact period.
The name Etchemin has also been applied to other material from what many scholars of Algonquian ethnography and linguistics believe to be Maliseet, Passamaquoddy, or Eastern Abenaki.
Some of the attested Loup vocabulary can be identified with different eastern Algonquian communities, including the Mahican, Maliseet, Passamaquoddy and other groups. Loup A and Loup B refer to two vocabulary lists which cannot be conclusively identified with another known community. Loup A is most likely Nipmuck, and is also somewhat similar to the handful of words attested for Agawam. Loup B seems like a composite of different dialects. It is closest to Mahican and Western Abenaki. They also may represent unknown tribes or bands, or may have been interethnic trade pidgins of some kind. Documentary evidence for Loup B is very thin (14 pages); the documentary evidence for Loup A is much more extensive (124 pages), being documented in a manuscript dictionary from the French missionary period. See Uncertain/Extinct Algonquian Languages.
[edit] References
- ^ a b c "'New World' Film Revives Extinct Native American Tongue", Stefan Lovgren, National Geographic News", January 20, 2006
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
[edit] Bibliography
- Ethnologue entry for Eastern Algonquian languages
- Campbell, Lyle (1997). American Indian languages: The historical linguistics of Native America. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-509427-1.
- Goddard, Ives (1994). The West-to-East Cline in Algonquian Dialectology. In William Cowan, ed., Papers of the 25th Algonquian Conference 187-211. Ottawa: Carleton University.
- ———— (1997). "Introduction". In Ives Goddard, ed., "Languages". Vol. 17 of William Sturtevant, ed., The Handbook of North American Indians. Washington, D.C.: The Smithsonian Institution.
- Grimes, Barbara F. (Ed.) (2000). Ethnologue: Languages of the world, (14th ed.). Dallas, TX: SIL International. ISBN 1-55671-106-9. Online edition: http://www.ethnologue.com/, accessed on Mar. 3, 2005.
- Mithun, Marianne (1999). The languages of Native North America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-23228-7 (hbk); ISBN 0-521-29875-X.
