Algic languages
Encyclopedia
The Algic languages are an indigenous language family of North America. Most Algic languages belong to the Algonquian
family, dispersed over a broad area from the Rocky Mountains
to Atlantic Canada
. The other Algic languages are the Yurok
and Wiyot
of northwestern California
, which despite their geographic proximity are not closely related. All these languages are thought to descend from Proto-Algic, a second-order protolanguage reconstructed using reconstructed Proto-Algonquian and the attested languages Wiyot
and Yurok
.
.
When Edward Sapir
proposed that the well-established Algonquian family was genetically related to the Wiyot and Yurok languages of northern California
, he applied the term Algic to this larger family. The original Algic homeland is thought to have been located in the American Northwest somewhere between the suspected homeland of the Algonquian branch (to the west of Lake Superior
according to Goddard) and the earliest known location of the Wiyot and Yurok (along the middle Columbia River
according to Whistler).
. Yurok is thought to have ten or fewer speakers. Extinct
Algic languages include Wiyot, Miami-Illinois, Etchemin
, Loup A, Loup B, Mahican
, Massachusett
, Mohegan-Pequot, Nanticoke
, Narragansett
, Pamlico
, the Penobscot dialect of Abnaki
, Powhatan
, Quiripi-Naugatuck
, Unami
, Unquachog, and Shinnecock. The last known Wiyot speaker died in 1962.
Within the Algonquian subfamily, there is a smaller genetic grouping of the Eastern Algonquian languages
. The other (non-Eastern) Algonquian languages have sometimes been categorized into two smaller subgroups: Central Algonquian and Plains Algonquian. However, these two subgroups are not based on genetic relationship but are rather geographic or areal subgroups. (See Algonquian languages
.)
The genetic relation of Wiyot and Yurok to Algonquian was first proposed by Edward Sapir
(1913, 1915, 1923), and argued against by Algonquianist Truman S. Michelson (1914, 1914, 1935). The relationship "has subsequently been demonstrated to the satisfaction of all". This controversy in the early classification of North American languages was called the "Ritwan controversy" because Wiyot and Yurok were assigned to a genetic grouping called "Ritwan". Most specialists now reject the validity of the Ritwan genetic node. Berman (1982) suggested that Wiyot and Yurok share sound changes not shared by the rest of Algic (which would be explainable by either areal diffusion or genetic relatedness); Berman's conclusion of common sound changes was refuted by Proulx (2004).
;
IJAL = International Journal of American Linguistics
Algonquian languages
The Algonquian languages also Algonkian) are a subfamily of Native American languages which includes most of the languages in the Algic language family. The name of the Algonquian language family is distinguished from the orthographically similar Algonquin dialect of the Ojibwe language, which is a...
family, dispersed over a broad area from the Rocky Mountains
Rocky Mountains
The Rocky Mountains are a major mountain range in western North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch more than from the northernmost part of British Columbia, in western Canada, to New Mexico, in the southwestern United States...
to Atlantic Canada
Atlantic Canada
Atlantic Canada is the region of Canada comprising the four provinces located on the Atlantic coast, excluding Quebec: the three Maritime provinces – New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Nova Scotia – and Newfoundland and Labrador...
. The other Algic languages are the Yurok
Yurok language
Yurok is a moribund Algic language. It is the traditional language of the Yurok tribe of Del Norte County and Humboldt County on the far North Coast of California, U.S., most of whom now speak English...
and Wiyot
Wiyot language
Wiyot is an extinct Algic language, formerly spoken by the Wiyot people of Humboldt Bay, California. The language's last native speaker, Della Prince, died in 1962...
of northwestern California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
, which despite their geographic proximity are not closely related. All these languages are thought to descend from Proto-Algic, a second-order protolanguage reconstructed using reconstructed Proto-Algonquian and the attested languages Wiyot
Wiyot language
Wiyot is an extinct Algic language, formerly spoken by the Wiyot people of Humboldt Bay, California. The language's last native speaker, Della Prince, died in 1962...
and Yurok
Yurok language
Yurok is a moribund Algic language. It is the traditional language of the Yurok tribe of Del Norte County and Humboldt County on the far North Coast of California, U.S., most of whom now speak English...
.
History
The term "Algic" was first coined by Henry Rowe Schoolcraft in his Algic Researches, published in 1839. Schoolcraft defined the term as "derived from the words Alleghany and Atlantic, in reference to the race of Indians anciently located in this geographical area." Schoolcraft's terminology was not retained. The peoples he called "Algic" were later included among the speakers of Algonquian languagesAlgonquian languages
The Algonquian languages also Algonkian) are a subfamily of Native American languages which includes most of the languages in the Algic language family. The name of the Algonquian language family is distinguished from the orthographically similar Algonquin dialect of the Ojibwe language, which is a...
.
When Edward Sapir
Edward Sapir
Edward Sapir was an American anthropologist-linguist, widely considered to be one of the most important figures in the early development of the discipline of linguistics....
proposed that the well-established Algonquian family was genetically related to the Wiyot and Yurok languages of northern California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
, he applied the term Algic to this larger family. The original Algic homeland is thought to have been located in the American Northwest somewhere between the suspected homeland of the Algonquian branch (to the west of Lake Superior
Lake Superior
Lake Superior is the largest of the five traditionally-demarcated Great Lakes of North America. It is bounded to the north by the Canadian province of Ontario and the U.S. state of Minnesota, and to the south by the U.S. states of Wisconsin and Michigan. It is the largest freshwater lake in the...
according to Goddard) and the earliest known location of the Wiyot and Yurok (along the middle Columbia River
Columbia River
The Columbia River is the largest river in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. The river rises in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia, Canada, flows northwest and then south into the U.S. state of Washington, then turns west to form most of the border between Washington and the state...
according to Whistler).
The classification of Algic
All Algic languages still spoken are endangeredEndangered language
An endangered language is a language that is at risk of falling out of use. If it loses all its native speakers, it becomes a dead language. If eventually no one speaks the language at all it becomes an "extinct language"....
. Yurok is thought to have ten or fewer speakers. Extinct
Extinct language
An extinct language is a language that no longer has any speakers., or that is no longer in current use. Extinct languages are sometimes contrasted with dead languages, which are still known and used in special contexts in written form, but not as ordinary spoken languages for everyday communication...
Algic languages include Wiyot, Miami-Illinois, Etchemin
Etchemin language
Etchemin was a language of the Algonquian language family, spoken in early colonial times on the coast of Maine. The word Etchemin is a French alteration of an Algonquian word for "canoe"....
, Loup A, Loup B, Mahican
Mahican language
Mahican is an extinct language of the Eastern Algonquian subgroup of the Algonquian language family, itself a member of the Algic language family....
, Massachusett
Massachusett language
The Massachusett language was a Native American language, a member of the Algonquian language family. It is also known as Wôpanâak , Natick, and Pokanoket....
, Mohegan-Pequot, Nanticoke
Nanticoke language
Nanticoke is an extinct Algonquian language formerly spoken in Delaware and Maryland, United States. The same language was spoken by several neighboring tribes, including the Nanticoke, which constituted the paramount chiefdom; the Choptank, the Assateague, and probably also the Piscataway and the...
, Narragansett
Narragansett language
Narragansett is an extinct Algonquian language formerly spoken in most of what is today Rhode Island by the Narragansett people. It was closely related to the other Algonquian languages of southern New England like Massachusett and Mohegan-Pequot...
, Pamlico
Carolina Algonquian language
Carolina Algonquian is an extinct Algonquian language of the Eastern Algonquian subgroup formerly spoken in North Carolina, United States....
, the Penobscot dialect of Abnaki
Eastern Abnaki language
Eastern Abnaki is an extinct language once spoken by the Penobscot in the coastal area of the state of Maine, United States. The last known speaker died in the 1990s in Penobscot, Maine.-External links:* at Native-languages.org....
, Powhatan
Powhatan language
Powhatan or Virginia Algonquian is an extinct language belonging to the Eastern Algonquian subgroup of the Algonquian languages. It was spoken by the Powhatan people of tidewater Virginia. It became extinct around the 1790s after speakers switched to English. The sole documentary evidence for this...
, Quiripi-Naugatuck
Quiripi language
Quiripi was an Algonquian language formerly spoken by the the indigenous people of southwestern Connecticut and central Long Island, including the Quinnipiac, Naugatuck, Unquachog, Mattabesic, Potatuck, Weantinock, and Paugussett. It has been effectively extinct since the end of the 18th century,...
, Unami
Unami language
Unami is an extinct Algonquian language formerly spoken by Lenape people in what is now the lower Hudson Valley area and New York Harbor area, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware, but later in Ontario and Oklahoma. It is one of the two Delaware languages, the other being Munsee...
, Unquachog, and Shinnecock. The last known Wiyot speaker died in 1962.
Within the Algonquian subfamily, there is a smaller genetic grouping of the Eastern Algonquian languages
Eastern Algonquian languages
The Eastern Algonquian languages constitute a subgroup of the Algonquian languages. Prior to European contact, Eastern Algonquian consisted of at least seventeen languages collectively occupying the Atlantic coast of North America and adjacent inland areas, from the Canadian Maritime provinces to...
. The other (non-Eastern) Algonquian languages have sometimes been categorized into two smaller subgroups: Central Algonquian and Plains Algonquian. However, these two subgroups are not based on genetic relationship but are rather geographic or areal subgroups. (See Algonquian languages
Algonquian languages
The Algonquian languages also Algonkian) are a subfamily of Native American languages which includes most of the languages in the Algic language family. The name of the Algonquian language family is distinguished from the orthographically similar Algonquin dialect of the Ojibwe language, which is a...
.)
The genetic relation of Wiyot and Yurok to Algonquian was first proposed by Edward Sapir
Edward Sapir
Edward Sapir was an American anthropologist-linguist, widely considered to be one of the most important figures in the early development of the discipline of linguistics....
(1913, 1915, 1923), and argued against by Algonquianist Truman S. Michelson (1914, 1914, 1935). The relationship "has subsequently been demonstrated to the satisfaction of all". This controversy in the early classification of North American languages was called the "Ritwan controversy" because Wiyot and Yurok were assigned to a genetic grouping called "Ritwan". Most specialists now reject the validity of the Ritwan genetic node. Berman (1982) suggested that Wiyot and Yurok share sound changes not shared by the rest of Algic (which would be explainable by either areal diffusion or genetic relatedness); Berman's conclusion of common sound changes was refuted by Proulx (2004).
Tree diagrams
Journals and books
AA = American AnthropologistAmerican Anthropologist
American Anthropologist is the flagship journal of the American Anthropological Association . It is known for publishing a wide range of work in anthropology, including articles on cultural, biological and linguistic anthropology and archeology...
;
IJAL = International Journal of American Linguistics
International Journal of American Linguistics
The International Journal of American Linguistics is an academic journal published by the University of Chicago devoted to the study of the indigenous languages of the Americas. It was established in 1917 by anthropologist Franz Boas...
- Berman, Howard. 1982. Two Phonological Innovations in Ritwan. IJAL 48: 412–20.
- 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. Actes du vingt-cinquième congrès des algonquinistes, ed. William Cowan. Ottawa: Carleton University.
- Goddard, Ives (Ed.). 1996. Languages (Vol. 17). Handbook of North American IndiansHandbook of North American IndiansThe Handbook of North American Indians is a monographic series of edited scholarly and reference volumes in Americanist studies, published by the Smithsonian Institution beginning in 1978. To date, fifteen volumes have been published...
(W. C. Sturtevant, General Ed.) Washington, D. C.: Smithsonian Institution. ISBN 0-16-048774-9. - Haas, Mary R.Mary HaasMary Rosamund Haas was an American linguist who specialized in North American Indian languages, Thai, and historical linguistics.-Early work in linguistics:...
1958. "Algonkian–Ritwan: The end of a controversy. IJAL, 24:159–173. - Haas, Mary R. 1966. "Wiyot–Yurok–Algonquian and problems of comparative Algonquian". IJAL. 32:101–107
- Michelson, Truman. 1914. Two alleged Algonquian languages of California. AA, n.s. 16:361–367.
- Michelson, Truman. 1915. Rejoinder. AA, n.s. 17:194–198.
- Michelson, Truman. 1935. Phonetic shifts in Algonquian languages. IJAL, 8:131–171
- Mithun, Marianne. 1999. The languages of Native North America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-23228-7 (hbk); ISBN 0-521-29875-X.
- Moratto, Michael J. 1984. California archaeology. Academic Press.
- Proulx, Paul. 1982. Yurok retroflection and sound symbolism in Proto-Algic. Kansas Working Papers in Linguistics, 7:119–123.
- Proulx, Paul. 1984. Proto-Algic I: Phonological sketch. IJAL, 50:165–207.
- Proulx, Paul. 1985. Proto-Algic II: Verbs. IJAL, 51:59–94.
- Proulx, Paul. 1991. Proto-Algic III: Pronouns. Kansas Working Papers in Linguistics, 16:129–170.
- Proulx, Paul. 1992. Proto-Algic IV: Nouns. Kansas Working Papers in Linguistics, 17:11–57.
- Proulx, Paul. 1994. Proto-Algic V: Doublets and their implications. Kansas Working Papers in Linguistics, 19(2):115–182.
- Proulx, Paul. 2004. Proto-Algic VI: Conditioned Yurok reflexes of Proto-Algic vowels. Kansas Working Papers in Linguistics, 27:124–138.
- Sturtevant, William C. (Ed.). 1978–present. Handbook of North American IndiansHandbook of North American IndiansThe Handbook of North American Indians is a monographic series of edited scholarly and reference volumes in Americanist studies, published by the Smithsonian Institution beginning in 1978. To date, fifteen volumes have been published...
Vol. 1–20. Washington, D. C.: Smithsonian Institution. - Sapir, Edward. 1913. Wiyot and Yurok, Algonkin languages of California. AA, n.s. 15:617–646.
- Sapir, Edward. 1915. Algonkin languages of California: A reply. AA, n.s. 17:188–194.
- Sapir, Edward. 1923. The Algonkin affinity of Yurok and Wiyot kinship terms. Journal de la Societe des Americanistes de Paris, 15:37–74
- Schoolcraft, Henry Rowe. 1839. Algic researches, comprising inquiries respecting the mental characteristics of the North American Indians. First series. Indian tales and legends, vol. 1. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1839.