| Abenaki | |
|---|---|
| Wôbanakiôdwawôgan | |
| Spoken in | Canada |
| Region | Odanak, Centre-du-Québec, Quebec |
| Ethnicity | Abenaki |
| Native speakers | 20 (1991) |
| Language family |
Algic
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | either: aaq – Eastern Abenaki (extinct) abe – Western Abenaki |
The Abenaki (also Abnaki) language is a dialect continuum within the Eastern Algonquian languages, originally spoken in what is now Vermont, New Hampshire, northern Massachusetts and Maine. Modern Western Abenaki is spoken by a small handful of Abenaki elders in Odanak, Quebec.
Eastern Abenaki was spoken by elders of the Penobscot tribe in eastern Maine until the 1990s. It is now considered extinct.[1] Other dialects of Eastern Abenaki, such as Caniba and Aroosagunticook, now extinct, are documented in French-language materials from the colonial period.
Western and Eastern Abenaki share many similarities, but they are also different in striking ways. They differ not only in vocabulary but also phonology.
bazegw = one
niz = two
nas = three
yaw = four
n[ô]lan * = five
ngued[ô]z * = six
tôbawôz = seven
nsôzek = eight
noliwi = nine
mdala = ten
sanôba = man
p[e]hanem * = woman
miguen = feather
* letters in square brackets often lost in vowel syncope.
The English word skunk, attested in New England in the 1630s, is probably borrowed from the Abenaki seganku[2]
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