Powhatan language
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| Powhatan | ||
|---|---|---|
| Spoken in: | Eastern Virginia | |
| Language extinction: | Late 18th century | |
| Language family: | Algic Algonquian Eastern Powhatan |
|
| Writing system: | Latin alphabet | |
| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639-1: | none | |
| ISO 639-2: | alg | |
| ISO 639-3: | pim | |
| Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. | ||
Powhatan or Virginia Algonquian is an extinct Eastern Algonquian language that was spoken by the Powhatan people of tidewater Virginia until the late 18th century, dying out in the 1790s after speakers switched to English.[1]
What little is known of it is by way of wordlists recorded by William Strachey (about 500 words) and Captain John Smith (about 50 words).[2] Smith also reported a pidgin form of Powhatan, but next to nothing is known of it.[3]
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[edit] Reconstitution for The New World
For the film The New World, Blair Rudes, a specialist in past and present American Indian languages from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, reconstituted a version of the language from these wordlists and knowledge of three other Algonquian languages, assuming that Powhatan would be similar to them. [2]
According to Rudes,
- 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. [2]
- ...
- 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. [2]
[edit] Notes
- ^ Mithun 1999, page 332.
- ^ a b c d "'New World' Film Revives Extinct Native American Tongue", Stefan Lovgren, National Geographic News", January 20, 2006
- ^ Campbell (2000): p. 20.
[edit] References
- Ethnologue entry for Powhatan
- Campbell, Lyle (2000). American Indian Languages: The Historical Linguistics of Native America. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-514050-8.
- Marianne Mithun. 1999. The Languages of Native North America. Cambridge Language Family Surveys. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Frank Siebert. 1975. "Resurrecting Virginia Algonquian from the dead: The reconstituted and historical phonology of Powhatan," Studies in Southeastern Indian Languages. Ed. James Crawford. Athens: University of Georgia Press. Pages 285-453.
[edit] External links
- A Dead Indian Language Is Brought Back to Life accessed 12 December 2006 (with audio clips)
- How a linguist revived ‘New World’ language accessed 16 April 2006.
- UNC Charlotte linguist restores lost language, culture for 'The New World' accessed 16 April 2006.
- Native Languages of the Americas: Powhatan
- Online version of both Strachey & Smith's word lists accessed 05 Nov 2006.
- audio clip of reconstituted language
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