Lenape language
From Freepedia
| Lenape () | |
|---|---|
| Spoken in: | Canada |
| Region: | Southern Ontario, Moraviantown Reserve; formerly around the Delaware and Hudson rivers |
| Total speakers: | 7 or 8 |
| Ranking: | Not in top 100 |
| Genetic classification: | Algic
Algonquian |
| Official status | |
| Official language of: | - |
| Regulated by: | - |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-1 | - |
| ISO 639-2 | del |
| SIL | UMU (Munsee dialect), DEL (Unami dialect) |
| See also: Language – List of languages | |
Lenape (also called Delaware) is a language in the Algonquian language family spoken by the Lenape people. It had two main dialects, Munsee and Unami. Sometimes the two are treated as separate languages, for example in the Ethnologue.
Munsee, or Minnisink, was spoken in the upper Delaware River (including northern New Jersey), New York, and Long Island Sound. Munsee is now spoken in parts of Canada, on and near the reservations to which Munsee were removed.
Unami was spoken in the lower Delaware River (including central and southern New Jersey) and was most recently spoken in parts of Oklahoma, where Unami-speakers were removed. It is now extinct.
Lenape is a word in the Unami dialect whose most literal translation into English would be "the people". (The common schoolbook term, Lenni-Lenape is not correct, but translates as, "the original people"). The Lenape names for the area they inhabited were Scheyischbi, which means, "the place bordering the ocean," and Lenapehoking, meaning "place where the people live," although the latter is not universally accepted as historical. [1]
See also
External links
Categories: Indigenous languages of the Americas stubs | Lenape people | Languages of Canada | Languages of the United States | Eastern Algonquian languages | Indigenous languages of the North American eastern woodlands
