Mohegan-Pequot language

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Not to be confused with the Mahican language, a different Native American language.
Mohegan-Pequot
Native to United States
Region southern New England
Extinct (date missing)
Algic
Language codes
ISO 639-3 xpq
Linguist list
 xpq
The location of the Mohegan, Pequot, Montaukett, Niantic, and Shinnecock, and their neighbors, c. 1600

Mohegan-Pequot (also known as Mohegan-Pequot-Montauk, Secatogue, Stockbridge, and Shinnecock-Poosepatuck; dialects include Mohegan, Pequot, Montauk, Niantic, and Shinnecock) is an extinct Algonquian language formerly spoken in parts of present-day New England and Long Island.[1]

Revitalization efforts

As of 2010, the Shinnecock and Unkechaug nations of Long Island, New York, had begun work with the State University of New York at Stony Brook, Southampton Campus, to revive their languages, or dialects of the above.[2] As of 2012, the Mohegan Language Project had created lessons, a dictionary, and other online learning materials to revive their language.[3]

Many of the dictionaries circulating are based on Prince and Speck's interpretation of testimony by the Mohegan woman, Dji's Butnaca (Flying Bird), also known as Fidelia A.H. Fielding.[4]

The Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center collection includes a 1992 menu "which attempts to translate such words as hamburger and hot dog into Mohegan-Pequot."[5]

The language was documented as early as the 17th century.

"In 1690, a Pequot vocabulary list was compiled by Rev. James Noyes in Groton. In 1717, Experience Mayhew, a Congregational Minister translated the Lord's Prayer into Mohegan-Pequot. Ezra Stiles, president of Yale University collected Pequot linguistic data in Groton in 1762."[5]

Bahá'í Prayers in the Mohegan-Pequot Language are also available.[6]

"It is a sacred obligation," says the Golden Hill Paugussett Chief, Big Eagle. "Indian people must keep their languages alive. If the language is not spoken, it must be made to live again."[5]

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Lewis, M. Paul (ed.), 2009. Ethnologue: Languages of the World. 16th edition. Dallas: Summer Institute of Linguistics
  2. ↑ Patricia Cohen, "Indian Tribes Go in Search of Their Lost Languages", New York Times, 6 Apr 2010, C1, C5
  3. ↑ "Mohegan Language Project". Retrieved 2012-11-12. 
  4. ↑ J. Dyneley Prince and Frank G. Speck (March 1904). "Glossary of the Mohegan-Pequot Language". JSTOR: American Anthropologist. New Series 6 (1): 18–45. Retrieved 2012-07-26. 
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Libby, Sam (18 October 1998). "Tribes to Revive Language". The New York Times. p. 6. 
  6. ↑ "Ôkosuwôkak wuci Mohiks-Piqut Uyôtowáwôk - Bahá'í Prayers in the Mohegan-Pequot Language". Retrieved 2012-11-12. 

References

    Articles

    • Cowan, William. Pequot from Stiles to Speck. International Journal of American Linguistics. The University of Chicago Press. Vol. 39, No. 3 (Jul., 1973), pp. 164–172
    • De Forest, John W. “The Lord’s Prayer in the Pequot Tongue.” In History of the Indians of Connecticut. 1852. Reprint, Brighton, MI: Native American Book Publishers, 1994.
    • Michelson, Truman. "The Linguistic Classification of Pequot-Mohegan." American Anthropologist 26 (1924): 295. doi:10.1525/aa.1924.26.2.02a00240
    • Pickering, John, ed. "Doctor Edwards' Observations on the Mohegan Languages." Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society. Series 2 Volume 10 (1823): 81-160.
    • Prince, J. Dyneley and Frank G. Speck. "Glossary of the Mohegan-Pequot Language." American Anthropologist 6 (1904): 18-45. doi:10.1525/aa.1904.6.1.02a00030
    • Prince, J. Dyneley and Frank G. Speck. "The Modern Pequots and Their Language." American Anthropologist 5 (1903): 193-212. doi:10.1525/aa.1903.5.2.02a00010
    • Speck, Frank. "A Modern Mohegan-Pequot Text." American Anthropologist 6 (1904): 469-76. doi:10.1525/aa.1904.6.4.02a00070
    • Speck, Frank and Fidelia Fielding. "A Pequot Mohegan Witchcraft Tale." Journal of American Folklore 16 (1903): 104-6.
    • Speck, Frank. "Native Tribes and Dialects of Connecticut: A Mohegan-Pequot Diary." Smithsonian Institution Bureau of American Ethnology Annual Report 43 (1903): 199-287.
    • Speck, Frank. Speck Papers and Photograph Collection. (17 microfilm reels)
    • Speck, Frank. "Text of the Pequot Sermon." American Anthropologist 5 (1903): 199-212.

    External links

    Mohegan-Pequot language test of Wikipedia at Wikimedia Incubator
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