Munsee language - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Endangered 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"....

of the Eastern Algonquian

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...

subgroup of the Algonquian

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...

language family, itself a branch of the Algic

Algic languages

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...

language family. Munsee is one of the two Delaware languages. It is very closely related to the extinct 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...

Delaware, but the two are sufficiently different that they are considered separate languages. Munsee was spoken aboriginally in the vicinity of the modern New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

area in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, including western Long Island

Long Island

Long Island is an island located in the southeast part of the U.S. state of New York, just east of Manhattan. Stretching northeast into the Atlantic Ocean, Long Island contains four counties, two of which are boroughs of New York City , and two of which are mainly suburban...

, Manhattan Island, Staten Island

Staten Island

Staten Island is a borough of New York City, New York, United States, located in the southwest part of the city. Staten Island is separated from New Jersey by the Arthur Kill and the Kill Van Kull, and from the rest of New York by New York Bay...

, as well as adjacent areas on the mainland: southeastern New York State, the northern third of New Jersey

New Jersey

New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...

, and northeastern Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...

.

Munsee is now spoken only on the Moraviantown

Moravian 47, Ontario

Moravian No. 47 is an Indian reserve located in Chatham-Kent Ontario with an area of 13 km². It is occupied by the Moravian of the Thames First Nation, a part of the Munsee branch of the Lenape, and is commonly known as Moravian of the Thames reserve...

Reserve in Ontario

Ontario

Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....

, Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

, by no more than four or five elderly individuals.

Classification

Munsee is an Eastern Algonquian language, which is the sole recognized genetic subgroup descending from Proto-Algonquian

Proto-Algonquian language

Proto-Algonquian is the name given to the proto-language from which the various languages of the Algonquian family are descended. It is generally estimated to have been spoken around 2,500 to 3,000 years ago, but on the question of where it was spoken there is less agreement...

, the common ancestor language of the Algonquian language family. Munsee is very closely related to Unami

Unami language

Delaware. Munsee and Unami constitute the Delaware languages, comprising a subgroup within Eastern Algonquian. Taken together with Mahican

Mahican

The Mahican are an Eastern Algonquian Native American tribe, originally settling in the Hudson River Valley . After 1680, many moved to Stockbridge, Massachusetts. During the early 1820s and 1830s, most of the Mahican descendants migrated westward to northeastern Wisconsin...

, the Delaware languages constitute Delawaran, a subgroup within Eastern Algonquian.

The term Munsee arose as a name for the aggregated group that formed along the upper Delaware River north of the Delaware Water Gap

Delaware Water Gap

The Delaware Water Gap is on the border of New Jersey and Pennsylvania where the Delaware River cuts through a large ridge of the Appalachian Mountains...

. Other Munsee dialect speakers joined the Minisink group; the earliest recorded mention of Munsee dates from 1725. Minisink is a Munsee term meaning "at the island", and is to be transcribed mə̆nə́sənk. It is the locative form of a now disused word /mənə́s/ 'island'; cognates in other Algonquian languages are e.g. Ojibwe minis 'island.' Orthographic in the form Minisink is the modern Munsee locative suffix /-ənk/ (discussed below in the Grammar section). The term 'Munsee' is the English adaptation of a regularly formed word mə́n'si·w (person from Minisink).

Over time Munsee was extended to any speaker of the Munsee language. Attempts to derive Munsee from a word meaning 'stone' or 'mountain' as proposed by Brinton

Daniel Garrison Brinton

Daniel Garrison Brinton was an American archaeologist and ethnologist.-Biography:Brinton was born in Thornbury Township, Chester County, Pennsylvania. After graduating from Yale University in 1858, Brinton studied at Jefferson Medical College for two years and spent the next travelling in Europe....

are incorrect. Kraft

Herbert C. Kraft

Herbert Clemens Kraft was an archaeologist from New Jersey, specializing in prehistory. Kraft was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey in 1927...

's claim that Munsee is not an indigenous term, and that it results from a 'corruption' of English use of Minisink is incorrect. The term follows a regular pattern of Munsee word formation.

Ethnonyms

Names for the speakers of Munsee are used in complex ways in both English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

and in Munsee. The Unami language is sometimes treated as "Delaware" or "Delaware proper", reflecting the original application of the term Delaware to Unami speakers, but Munsee speakers use "Delaware" as a self-designation in English. The term Delaware was originally applied to Unami speakers living along the Delaware River

Delaware River

The Delaware River is a major river on the Atlantic coast of the United States.A Dutch expedition led by Henry Hudson in 1609 first mapped the river. The river was christened the South River in the New Netherland colony that followed, in contrast to the North River, as the Hudson River was then...

, which is named after Lord De La Warr

Thomas West, 3rd Baron De La Warr

Thomas West, 3rd and 12th Baron De La Warr was the Englishman after whom the bay, the river, and, consequently, an American Indian people and U.S. state, all later called "Delaware", were named....

, the first governor of Virginia. The term was gradually extended to refer to all Delaware groups.

The Munsee in Ontario are sometimes referred to as "Ontario Delaware" or "Canadian Delaware". Munsee-speaking residents of Moraviantown use the English term "Munsee" to refer to residents of Munceytown, approximately 50 km (31.1 mi) to the east. In English, Moraviantown residents call themselves "Delaware", and in Munsee /lənáːpeːw/ "Delaware person, Indian".

Some Delaware at Moraviantown also use the term Christian Indian

Christian Munsee

The Christian Munsee were a group of Lenape native American Indians, primarily Munsee-speaking, who converted to Christianity, following the teachings of the Moravian missionaries...

as a preferred self-designation in English. The equivalent Munsee term is ké·ntə̆we·s ("one who prays, Moravian convert"). Munsee speakers refer to Oklahoma Delaware as "Unami" in English or /wə̆ná·mi·w/ in Munsee. The English term "Lenape" is of Unami origin, and is used in English as a self-designation by speakers of Unami; Exceptionally among scholars, Kraft uses Lenape as an English-language cover term to refer to all Delaware-speaking groups, while noting that this usage is "not entirely appropriate".

Munsee speakers refer to their language as /hə̀lə̆ni·xsəwá·kan/, literally 'speaking the Delaware language'.

Geographic Distribution

Speakers of Munsee originally resided in the greater Manhattan area, and the drainage of the Lower Hudson River valley

Hudson Valley

The Hudson Valley comprises the valley of the Hudson River and its adjacent communities in New York State, United States, from northern Westchester County northward to the cities of Albany and Troy.-History:...

and the upper Delaware River

Delaware River

. The arrival of European explorers, traders and settlers resulted in the progressive displacement of Munsee people over a period of several centuries. Munsee groups affected by this process ultimately moved away from their homeland to communities in both the United States and Canada. In the twentieth century, surviving Munsee speakers lived at Six Nations, Ontario and Munceytown

Munsee-Delaware Nation 1, Ontario

The Munsee-Delaware Nation No. 1 is an Indian reserve on the Thames River, west of St. Thomas, Ontario, Canada, and belongs to the Munsee-Delaware First Nation...

, Ontario. Now extinct in both locations, the language is used only at Moraviantown

Moravian 47, Ontario

, Ontario.
In recent years, the language is being taught to tribal members of the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohican

Mohican

-Native Americans:* Mahican , a Native American tribe who lived in and around the Hudson Valley* Mohegan, a functional confederation of several branches of Native Americans during the 16th century and the beginning of the 17th century...

Native Americans, the Ramapough Mountain Indians

Ramapough Mountain Indians

The Ramapough Mountain Indians, also known as Ramapo Mountain Indians or the Ramapough Lenape Nation, are a group of approximately 5,000 people living around the Ramapo Mountains of northern New Jersey and southern New York. Their tribal office is located on Stag Hill Road on Houvenkopf Mountain in...

and the Delaware Nation

Delaware Nation

The Delaware Nation, sometimes called the Absentee or Western Delaware, is one of two federally recognized tribe of Delaware Indians, along with the Delaware Indians based in Bartlesville, Oklahoma...

, Moravian of the Thames Band.

Original location

The southern boundary of Munsee territory was the area north of the Delaware Water Gap

Delaware Water Gap

The Delaware Water Gap is on the border of New Jersey and Pennsylvania where the Delaware River cuts through a large ridge of the Appalachian Mountains...

, following the river system southeast along the Raritan River

Raritan River

The Raritan River is a major river of central New Jersey in the United States. Its watershed drains much of the mountainous area of the central part of the state, emptying into the Raritan Bay on the Atlantic Ocean.-Description:...

to the Atlantic Ocean. To the south of the Munsee were the Unami Delaware. To the north were the Algonquian 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....

, and to the east were the Eastern Long Island Algonquian languages, such as Unquachog

Mohegan-Montauk-Narragansett language

Mohegan-Pequot is an extinct Algonquian language formerly spoken in parts of present-day New England and Long Island.As of 2010, the Shinnecock and Unkechaug nations of Long Island, New York, had begun work...

(also spelled Unkechaug) and southern New England languages, such as Quiripi

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,...

. (Quiripi and Unquachog are likely members of a dialect continuum of a single language.)

Aboriginally, and for a period subsequent to the arrival of Europeans, Munsee was spoken in a series of small and largely autonomous local bands, primarily located within the drainage of the Hudson and upper Delaware rivers, the major river systems of the area. The general pattern, found throughout the Eastern Algonquian area, was one in which indigenous

Indigenous peoples

Indigenous peoples are ethnic groups that are defined as indigenous according to one of the various definitions of the term, there is no universally accepted definition but most of which carry connotations of being the "original inhabitants" of a territory....

groups resided along the drainages of major river systems, with divisions between upriver and downriver groupings. Named groups were found on the major tributaries, with larger sites on the main streams and smaller camps at the headwaters and on feeder streams. Estimates vary, but these local groups may have had a population of up to two hundred people each. These groups spoke localized varieties of the language now called Munsee, but there is little information on dialect variation within the Munsee-speaking area.

The primary known named Munsee groups, from north to south on the west side of the Hudson River, were the

Esopus, west of the Hudson River
Hudson River
The Hudson is a river that flows from north to south through eastern New York. The highest official source is at Lake Tear of the Clouds, on the slopes of Mount Marcy in the Adirondack Mountains. The river itself officially begins in Henderson Lake in Newcomb, New York...

in the Hudson River watershed (with subgroups the Waoranecks, Warranawankongs, and others);
Minisink (above the Delaware Water Gap);
Haverstraw, Tappan, and Hackensack, south of the Hudson Highlands west of the Hudson River;
Raritan, who originally resided on the lower Raritan River and moved inland;
Wiechquaeskeck from east of the Hudson who migrated to the lower Raritan after 1649; with the *Navasink to the east along the north shore of New Jersey.

The Wappinger were to the east of the upper Hudson; below them going north to south on the east bank of the Hudson were

Kichtawanks;
Sinsinks;
Rechgawawanks;
Nayack;
Marechkawieck, with the Canarsee and Rockaway on western Long Island; and
Massapequa and Matinecock on central Long Island, who may have been Munsee or perhaps were the predecessors of the Unquachog group identified in the eighteenth century.

The disruptions resulting from the impact of European settlers, fur traders, and explorers led to the displacement of these local groups accompanied by consolidation into larger groups that brought together speakers from the different groups within the Munsee-speaking area.

Sounds

Munsee phonology is complex but regular in many regards. Metrical

Metrical phonology

Metrical phonology is a theory of stress or linguistic prominence. The innovative feature of this theory is that the prominence of a unit is defined relative to other units in the same phrase...

rules of syllable weight assignment play a key role in the assignment of word-level stress

Stress (linguistics)

In linguistics, stress is the relative emphasis that may be given to certain syllables in a word, or to certain words in a phrase or sentence. The term is also used for similar patterns of phonetic prominence inside syllables. The word accent is sometimes also used with this sense.The stress placed...

, and also determine the form of rules of vowel Syncope that produce complex but mostly regular alternations in the forms of words. Word-level stress is largely predictable, with exceptions occurring primarily in loan words, reduplicated

Reduplication

Reduplication in linguistics is a morphological process in which the root or stem of a word is repeated exactly or with a slight change....

forms, and in words where historical change has made historically transparent alternations more opaque.

Consonants and vowels

Munsee has the following inventory of consonants; International Phonetic Alphabet

International Phonetic Alphabet

The International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic...

(IPA) values are given in brackets.

**Munsee Delaware Consonants**
Bilabial	Dental	Postalveolar	Velar	Glottal
Stop	p	t	č [tʃ]	k
Fricative		s	š [ʃ]	x	h
Nasal	m	n
Lateral		l
Glides	(w)		y [j]	w

Some loan words from English contain /f/ and /r/: fé·li·n 'there is a fair going on'; ntáyrəm 'my tire.'

Different analyses of the Munsee vowel system have been proposed. Goddard (1979) presents an analysis in which Munsee and Unami have the same vowel system, unchanged from the Proto-Eastern-Algonquian vowel system (discussed in the History section below). In this analysis, there are four long vowels /i·, o·, e·, a·/ and two short vowels /a, ə/. Vowel length is indicated with a raised dot (·). However, in modern Munsee there are several sources of new short /i, o, e/ that arise from such sources as reduplication, loan words, and other various phonological changes, and that cannot be derived from other underlying vowels. Hence an analysis in which there are four positions that have contrastive vowel length as well as /ə/, is appropriate.

The short vowel /i/ has the phonetic value [ɪ]. Short /a/ has values centring on [ʌ], with [a] occurring before [hC] (where 'C' represents any stop or the lateral consonant). Short /o/ has values centring on [ʊ]. The long vowels /iː, eː, aː, oː/ have the primary values [iː], [ɛː], [aː], and [oː], with /a/ varying to [ɑ], and [ɒ] after labial consonants.

**Munsee Vowels**
	Front	Central	Back
High	i· [iː], i [ɪ]		o· [oː], o [ʊ]
Mid	e· [ɛː], e [ɛ]	ə
Low		a· [aː], a [ʌ]

Syllable Weight

Syllable weight plays a significant role in Munsee phonology, determining stress placement and the deletion of certain short vowels. All syllables containing long vowels are strong. Any short vowel in a closed syllable (i.e. (C)VC) is strong. Counting left to right, in a sequence of two or more open syllables containing short vowels the odd-numbered syllable is weak and the even-numbered syllable is strong. As well, certain syllables containing short vowels (frequently such syllables occur in reduplicated syllables and loan words) must exceptionally be marked as strong.

In words longer than two syllables, the final syllable is excluded from consideration of stress placement, i.e. is extrametrical

Extrametricality

In linguistics, extrametricality is a tool for prosodic analysis of words in a language. In certain languages, a particular segment or prosodic unit of a word may be ignored for the purposes of determining the stress structure of the word...

, and the last strong syllable preceding the final syllable in the word receives the main stress.

(a) payaxkhı́·kan 'rifle' (strong penultimate, receives primary stress)

(b) né·wake 'if I see him' (weak penultimate, preceding syllable receives primary stress)

In disyllabic words a strong penultimate syllable receives primary stress.

(a) á·mwi·w 's/he gets up from lying down' (disyllabic Strong-Strong)

In a disyllable with a weak penultimate syllable, the final syllable is strong, and receives primary stress.

(a) ăsə́n 'stone' (disyllabic Weak-Strong)

Grammar

The grammar of Munsee is characterized by complex inflection

Inflection

In grammar, inflection or inflexion is the modification of a word to express different grammatical categories such as tense, grammatical mood, grammatical voice, aspect, person, number, gender and case...

al and derivational

Derivational morphology

Derivational morphology changes the meaning of words by applying derivations. Derivation is the combination of a word stem with a morpheme, which forms a new word, which is often of a different class...

morphology.

Morphology (linguistics)

In linguistics, morphology is the identification, analysis and description, in a language, of the structure of morphemes and other linguistic units, such as words, affixes, parts of speech, intonation/stress, or implied context...

Inflection in Munsee is realized through the use of prefixes and suffixes added to word stems to indicate grammatical information, including number (singular or plural), gender

Grammatical gender

Grammatical gender is defined linguistically as a system of classes of nouns which trigger specific types of inflections in associated words, such as adjectives, verbs and others. For a system of noun classes to be a gender system, every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be...

, person

Grammatical person

Grammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event; such as the speaker, the addressee, or others. Grammatical person typically defines a language's set of personal pronouns...

, possession

Possession (linguistics)

Possession, in the context of linguistics, is an asymmetric relationship between two constituents, the referent of one of which possesses the referent of the other ....

, negation, obviation, and others.

Nouns use combinations of person prefixes and suffixes to indicate possession, and suffixes to indicate gender, number, diminutive, absentative, and obviation.

Verbs use a single set of person prefixes and a series of suffixes in position classes following the verb stem to indicate combinations of person, number, negation, obviation, and others.

Writing system

There is no standard writing system for Munsee. Linguists have tended to use common phonetic transcription symbols of the type found in the International Phonetic Alphabet

International Phonetic Alphabet

or similar Americanist

Americanist phonetic notation

Americanist phonetic notation is a system of phonetic notation originally developed by European and American anthropologists and language scientists for the phonetic and phonemic transcription of Native American and European languages...

symbols in order to represent sounds that are not consistently represented in conventional standard writing systems.

Europeans writing down Delaware words and sentences have tended to use adaptations of European alphabets and associated conventions. The quality of such renditions have varied widely, as Europeans attempted to record sounds and sound combinations they were not familiar with.

A practical orthography for Munsee has been created in the context of various language preservation and documentation projects. A recent bilingual dictionary of Munsee uses a practical orthography derived from a linguistic transcription system for Munsee. The same system is also used in a recent word book produced locally at Moraviantown. The related Unami language is written using a distinct practical orthography.

Writing system samples

The table below presents a sample of Munsee words, written first in a linguistically oriented transcription, followed by the same words written in a practical system. The linguistic system uses a raised dot (·) to indicate vowel length. Although stress is mostly predictable, the linguistic system uses the acute accent to indicate predictable main stress. As well, predictable voiceless or murmured /ă/ is indicated with the breve accent (˘). Similarly, the breve accent is used to indicate an ultra-short [ə] that typically occurs before a single voiced consonant followed by a vowel. The practical system indicates vowel length by doubling the vowel letter, and maintains the linɡuistic system's practices for marking stress and voiceless/ultra-short vowels. The practical system uses orthographic for the phonetic symbol /š/, and for the phonetic symbol /č/.

Comparison of linguistic and practical orthographies for Munsee
Linguistic	Practical	English	Linguistic	Practical	English	Linguistic	Practical	English	Linguistic	Practical	English
ampi·lamé·kwa·n	ambiilaméekwaan	needle	nkwə́ta·š	ngwútaash	six	wčéht	wchéht	sinew, muscle	ăpánšəy	ăpánzhuy	log, timber
nə̆wánsi·n	nŭwánsiin	I forgot it	xwánsal	xwánzal	his older brother	ní·ša·š	níishaash	seven	ntəší·nsi	ndushíinzi	I am named so and so
máske·kw	máskeekw	swamp, pond	xá·š	xáash	eight	ăpwá·n	ăpwáan	bread	óhpwe·w	óhpweew	he smokes
wə́sksəw	wúsksuw	he is young	ătíhte·w	ătíhteew	it is ripe	kíhkay	kíhkay	chief	máxkw	máxkw	bear
kwi·škwtó·nhe·w	kwiishkwtóonheew	he whispers	áhpăpo·n	áhpăpoon	chair	xwáškwšəš	xwáshkwshush	muskrat	pé·nkwan	péenɡwan	it is dry

History

Munsee is an Eastern Algonquian language. The hypothetical common ancestor language from which the Eastern Algonquian languages descend is Proto-Eastern Algonquian (PEA). An intermediate group Delawaran that is a descendant of Proto-Eastern Algonquian consists of Mahican and Common Delaware, the latter being a further subgroup comprising Munsee Delaware and Unami Delaware. The justification for Delawaran as an intermediate subgroup rests upon the high degree of similarity between Mahican and the two Delaware languages, but relatively little detailed argumentation in support of Delaware has been adduced.

Munsee is demonstrably phonologically conservative, and is considered to have retained many of the phonological characteristics of PEA. In comparison, Unami has undergone extensive phonological innovation, coupled with morphological regularization

Regularization (linguistics)

In linguistics, regularization is a phenomenon in language acquisition and language development, whereby irregular forms in morphology, syntax, etc., are replaced by regular ones. Examples are "gooses" instead of "geese" in child speech and replacement of the Middle English plural form for "cow",...

.

The PEA vowel system consisted of four long vowels *i·, *o·, *e·, *a·, and two short vowels *a and ə. The vowel history is as follows: *i· (from PEA merger of Proto-Algonquian (PA *i· and *i to PEA *i·), *o· (from PEA merger of PA *o· and *o ), *e· (from Proto-Algonquian *e·), and *a· (from Proto-Algonquian *a·; the short vowels are*ə (from Proto-Algonquian *e), and *a (from Proto-Algonquian *a). This system was continued down to Common Delaware, but Munsee and Unami have innovated separately with respect to the vowel systems.

Contrastive vowel length for Munsee high vowels has been reintroduced, and also for the front mid vowels. For modern Munsee it is necessary to recognize long /i·, o·, e·, a·/ and short /i, o, e, a/. Innovating instances of short /i, o, and e/ arise from for example reduplicating