Abenaki language

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Template:Infobox language 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 currently spoken by a very small handful of Abenaki elders in Odanak, Quebec. Eastern Abenaki was until quite recently spoken by elders of the Penobscot tribe in eastern Maine, although it is now 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 are also different in striking ways, not only in vocabulary but also phonology.

Sample vocabulary

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
* letters in square brackets often lost in vowel syncope.

References

Day, Gordon M. 1994a. Western Abenaki Dictionary. Volume 1: Abenaki to English. Hull: Canadian Museum of Civilization, Mercury Series, Canadian Ethnology Service Paper 128.
Day, Gordon M. 1994b. Western Abenaki Dictionary. Volume 2: English to Abenaki. Hull: Canadian Museum of Civilization, Mercury Series, Canadian Ethnology Service Paper 128.
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Laurent, Joseph. 1884. New Familiar Abenakis and English Dialogues. Quebec: Joseph Laurent. Reprinted 2006: Vancouver: Global Language Press, ISBN 0-9738924-7-1
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