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52-529: Lingan ( Mi'kmawi'simk : Milesk , meaning "place of many resources") (is a Canadian suburban community in Nova Scotia 's Cape Breton Regional Municipality . Its population in 2021 was 229. Lingan is located on the shore of the Cabot Strait , northeast from Sydney , east of New Waterford and northwest of Glace Bay . The community occupies a headland which forms the north side of Lingan Bay, to

104-407: A decimal numeral system . Every multiple-digit number is formed by using one of the first nine numerals as a prefix or a preceding word, as seen in the number for ten, neꞌwtisgaq , a combination of the prefix neꞌwt - (derived from newt ) and the root isgaꞌq , meaning ten (the pattern can be seen in tapuisgaꞌq for 20, nesisgaꞌq for 30, etc.) While 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50 all use

156-595: A degree of endangerment level of vulnerable under the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger scale. A level of vulnerable means the language may not be used consistently and instead the dominant language English is opted for. This also means it is still somewhat commonly spoken by younger generations or children of Mi'kmaq people. A lack of fluent Mi'kmaq speakers is due to the cultural genocide performed by

208-618: A classifying system of animate versus inanimate words . The animacy system in general is common, but the specifics of Miꞌkmaq's system differ even from closely related Algic languages. For instance, in Wampanoag, the word for 'Sun', cone , is inanimate, but the word for 'Earth', ahkee , is animate, a fact used by some scholars to claim that the Wampanoag people were aware of the Earth's rotation around an unmoving Sun; however, in Miꞌkmaq, both

260-561: A defining feature of all indigenous languages of the Americas . This characterization was shown to be wrong, since many indigenous American languages are not polysynthetic, but it is a fact that polysynthetic languages are not evenly distributed throughout the world, but more frequent in the Americas , Australia , Siberia , and New Guinea ; however, there are also examples in other areas. The concept became part of linguistic typology with

312-589: A high degree of morphological synthesis, and which tend to form long complex words containing long strings of morphemes , including derivational and inflectional morphemes. A language then is "synthetic" or "synthesizing" if it tends to have more than one morpheme per word, and a polysynthetic language is a language that has "many" morphemes per word. The concept was originally used only to describe those languages that can form long words that correspond to an entire sentence in English or other Indo-European languages , and

364-664: A member of the Eskasoni First Nation , recorded a cover version of the Beatles song " Blackbird " in the language to raise awareness and help in its revitalization efforts. Miꞌkmaq is one of the Algic languages , a family that once spanned from a small portion of California across Central Canada , the Midwestern United States , and the northeastern coast of North America. Within this family, Miꞌkmaq

416-438: A population density of 57.4/km (148.6/sq mi) in 2021. 46°14′1.7″N 60°2′38.3″W  /  46.233806°N 60.043972°W  / 46.233806; -60.043972 Mi%27kmaq language The phonemic inventory of Mi'kmaq is shown below. The sounds of Mi'kmaq can be divided into two groups: obstruents ( /p, t, k, kʷ, t͡ʃ, s, x, xʷ/ ) and sonorants ( /m, n, w, l, j/ and all vowels). The obstruents have

468-410: A schwa preceding the cluster; for instance, gtaꞌn is pronounced /ək.taːn/ while mgumi is pronounced /əm.ku.mi/ . On the other hand, word-final clusters, such as in asige tg ('instigate') are pronounced over a single syllable: compare the pronunciation of asigetg , /a.si.ketk/ , with mestꞌg ('taste'), /mes.tək/ . Miꞌkmaq uses free word order, based on emphasis rather than

520-542: A second person singular object). Many polysynthetic languages combine these two strategies, and also have ways of inflecting verbs for concepts normally encoded by adverbs or adjectives in Indo-European languages. In this way highly complex words can be formed, for example the Yupik word tuntussuqatarniksaitengqiggtuq which means "He had not yet said again that he was going to hunt reindeer." The word consists of

572-402: A single word containing a prefix, the tens between 60 and 90 use the numeral as a preceding word to a separate word meaning ten, teꞌsisgaꞌq : for instance, 60 is written as asꞌgom teꞌsisgaꞌq . Numbers between the tens are stated by multiple-word phrases, beginning with the ten-based root number, such as neꞌwtisgaq , followed by jel (meaning 'and' or 'also') and ending with one of

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624-433: A traditionally fixed order of subjects, objects and verbs. For instance, the sentence "I saw a moose standing right there on the hill" could be stated " sapmiꞌk ala nemaqtꞌk na tett tia'm kaqamit " (I saw him/there/on the hill/right-there/ a moose /he was standing) or " sapmiꞌk ala tia'm nemaqtꞌk na tett kaqamit " (I saw him/there/ a moose /on the hill/right-there/he was standing); the latter sentence puts emphasis on

676-433: A wide variety of pronunciations. When they are located word-initially or next to another obstruent, they are voiceless [p, t, k, kʷ, t͡ʃ, s, x, xʷ] . However, when they are located between sonorants, they are voiced , and appear as [b, d, ɡ, ɡʷ, d͡ʒ, z, ɣ, ɣʷ] . When the plosives and affricate are located word-finally, they may be aspirated and appear as [pʰ, tʰ, kʰ, kʷʰ, tʃʰ] . An example of each kind of pronunciation

728-423: Is also given in the table below; this orthography is more complex than the table suggests, particularly as far as vowel quantity and quality is concerned, employing various letters such as ⟨ a ⟩, ⟨ à ⟩, ⟨ɛ⟩ , ⟨ɛ́⟩ , ⟨ɯ⟩ , ⟨ɯ́⟩ , ⟨ɹ̇⟩ , ⟨ɹ́⟩ , ⟨ơ⟩ , ⟨ u ⟩, etc. Miꞌkmaq uses

780-573: Is complicated by the fact that morpheme and word boundaries are not always clear cut, and languages may be highly synthetic in one area but less synthetic in other areas (e.g., verbs and nouns in Southern Athabaskan languages or Inuit languages ). Many polysynthetic languages display complex evidentiality and/or mirativity systems in their verbs . The term was invented by Peter Stephen Du Ponceau , who considered polysynthesis, as characterized by sentence words and noun incorporation,

832-524: Is composed of the Greek roots poly meaning "many" and synthesis meaning "placing together". In linguistics a word is defined as a unit of meaning that can stand alone in a sentence, and which can be uttered in isolation. Words may be simple, consisting of a single unit of meaning, or they can be complex, formed by combining many small units of meaning, called morphemes . In a general non-theoretical sense polysynthetic languages are those languages that have

884-809: Is given below. Miꞌkmaq distinguishes between long and short vowels and consonants, the latter indicated in Listuguj by doubling the consonant. Beyond expanding in length, long consonants add a schwa when they precede other consonants. For instance, compare /en.mitk/ , written in Listuguj as e n mitg ('flow away') with /en.nə.mit/ , written in Listuguj as e nn mit ('stick into'); or, /tox.tʃu.pi.la.wek/ , written in Listuguj as toqjuꞌpila w eg ('hoist'), with /ke.si.kaw.wek/ , written in Listuguj as gesiga ww eg ('loud'). Listuguj orthography occasionally begins words with consonant clusters, as in gt aꞌn ('ocean') and mg umi ('ice'). However, such clusters are pronounced over separate syllables, with

936-483: Is largely free and dependent on context. Mi'kmaq verbs are also marked for tense. Nouns in Mi'kmaq are either animate or inanimate . This is a common feature among Algonquian languages . The verbs change depending on the noun's animacy. For example: Nemitu – 'I see (inanimate noun)' Nemi'k – 'I see (animate noun)' Miꞌkmaq is written using a number of Latin alphabets based on ones devised by missionaries in

988-530: Is part of the Eastern Algonquian subgroup spoken largely along the Atlantic coast. It is closely related to several extant languages, such as Malecite-Passamaquoddy , Massachusett and Munsee as well as extinct languages like Abenaki and Unami . Beyond having a similar language background and sharing close geographic proximity, the Miꞌkmaq notably held an alliance with four other tribes within

1040-464: Is usually only marked for agreement with the subject (e.g. Spanish hablo "I speak" where the -o ending marks agreement with the first person singular subject), but in many languages verbs also agree with the object (e.g. the Kiswahili word nakupenda "I love you" where the n- prefix marks agreement with the first person singular subject and the ku- prefix marks agreement with

1092-440: Is written as taꞌpu pituimtlnaqn . The exceptions to that pattern are the numbers 100 and 1,000, which are simply the roots gasgꞌptnnaqan and pituimtlnaqn , respectively. Similarly to digits between the tens, the connecting word jel is used between hundreds and tens, or thousands and hundreds: for example, the number 3,452 is written as siꞌst pituimtlnaqn jel neꞌw gasgꞌptnnaqan jel naꞌnisgaq jel taꞌpu . On top of

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1144-848: The Devco Railway , formerly the Sydney & Louisburg Railway . In the late 1970s, the Nova Scotia Power Corporation constructed the Lingan Generating Station to generate electricity from coal. This plant is still in operation and currently uses coal imported from the United States and South America which is shipped to Sydney and hauled by the Sydney Coal Railway . Lingan has a long history of Irish heritage with some of

1196-423: The Yupik word tuntussuqatarniksaitengqiggtuq . tuntu reindeer -ssur -hunt -qatar - FUT -ni -say -ksaite - NEG -ngqiggte -again -uq - 3SG . IND tuntu -ssur -qatar -ni -ksaite -ngqiggte -uq reindeer -hunt -FUT -say -NEG -again -3SG.IND "He had not yet said again that he was going to hunt reindeer." Except for the morpheme tuntu "reindeer", none of

1248-645: The 19th century. Previously, the language was written in Miꞌkmaq hieroglyphic writing , a script of partially native origin. The Francis-Smith orthography used here was developed in 1974 and was adopted as the official orthography of the Míkmaq Nation in 1980. It is the most widely used orthography and is that used by Nova Scotian Mikmaq and by the Míkmaq Grand Council. It is quite similar to the "Lexicon" orthography, differing from it only in its use of

1300-564: The Canadian government through the introduction of the Canadian Indian residential school system . These schools under the notation of assimilation, forced Indigenous children to reject their cultural identity and language. These schools resulted in a significant number of children physically and mentally abused and without the means to speak their mother tongue. Wagmatcook, Cape Breton, is undergoing significant efforts to revitalize

1352-600: The Eastern Algonquian language group known as the Wabanaki Confederacy : in short, a history of long-term language contact has existed between Miꞌkmaq and its close linguistic relatives. Miꞌkmaq has many similarities with its fellow Eastern Algonquian languages, including multiple word cognates: for instance, compare the Miꞌkmaq word for 'woman', eꞌpit , to the Maliseet ehpit [æpit] , or

1404-553: The English words caribou and toboggan are borrowings from Miꞌkmaq. The name caribou was probably derived from the Miꞌkmaq word xalibu or Qalipu meaning 'the one who paws'. Marc Lescarbot in his publication in French in 1610 used the term caribou . Silas Tertius Rand translated the Miꞌkmaq word Kaleboo as 'caribou' in his Miꞌkmaq-English dictionary (Rand 1888:98). The aforementioned use of hieroglyphic writing in pre-colonial Miꞌkmaq society shows that Miꞌkmaq

1456-779: The Miꞌkmaq language, due to the Acadians and Miꞌkmaq living together prior to the Expulsion of the Acadians and the British colonization of Acadia ; in French-speaking areas, traces of Miꞌkmaq can also be found largely in geographical names within regions historically that were occupied by the Miꞌkmaq people, including Quebec and several towns in Nova Scotia such as Antigonish and Shubenacadie . Moreover, several Miꞌkmaq words have made their way into colonizing languages:

1508-655: The backseat of the car speaking Miꞌkmaq and they're excited", said the Miꞌkmaq language instructor at Lnu Siꞌpuk Kinaꞌmuokuom Miꞌkmaq school in Indian Brook . Miꞌkmaq language courses are mandatory from grades Primary to 12 at the school, which only opened six years ago. Evening classes are starting as of Oct. 2013. Also as of 2013, Lunenburg County, Nova Scotia 's Miꞌkmaq Burial Grounds Research and Restoration Association has about forty students in its Miꞌkmaq language revitalization classes, and Miꞌkmaq greetings are becoming more common in public places. In 2021, Emma Stevens,

1560-491: The basic structure, numbers in Miꞌkmaq must agree with the animacy of whatever they are counting: for instance, when speaking of two people, taꞌpusijik is used, as opposed to the number used for two days, taꞌpugnaꞌq . The suffix -ijik to denote the counting of animate subjects and the suffix -gnaꞌq to denote the counting of inanimate subjects are common, but animacy-marking suffixes are somewhat fluid and vary by number and dialect. The Mi'kmaq language possesses

1612-761: The development of an Algonquian–Basque pidgin with a strong Miꞌkmaq imprint, which was recorded to be still in use in the early 18th century. A 2012 book, by the Miꞌkmaq linguist Bernie Francis and anthropologist Trudy Sable, The Language of this Land, Miꞌkmaꞌki, "examines the relationship between Miꞌkmaq language and landscape." Polysynthetic language In linguistic typology , polysynthetic languages , formerly holophrastic languages , are highly synthetic languages , i.e., languages in which words are composed of many morphemes (word parts that have independent meaning but may or may not be able to stand alone). They are very highly inflected languages. Polysynthetic languages typically have long "sentence-words" such as

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1664-586: The head noun with agreement morphemes. There are some dependent-marking languages that may be considered to be polysynthetic because they use case stacking to achieve similar effects, and very long words. An example from Chukchi , a polysynthetic, incorporating , and agglutinating language of Russia which also has grammatical cases unlike the majority of incorporating polysynthetic languages: t- 1S . SUBJ meyŋ- great levt- head pəγt- hurt rkən 1S . PRES t- meyŋ- levt- pəγt- rkən 1S.SUBJ great head hurt 1S.PRES 'I have

1716-401: The language. The community created a variety of children's books suited for a range of ages to develop Mi'kmaq language skills as children mature. The use of Mi'kmaq immersion schools in this area also increased the proficiency in the language for children and an improved attachment to their Indigenous identity. The immersion schools allowed children to learn their mother tongue, which increases

1768-403: The moose by placing tia'm ('moose') earlier in the utterance. Miꞌkmaq, as a polysynthetic language , has verbs which usually contain the sentence's subject and object: for instance, the aforementioned sapmiꞌk translates to 'I saw him'. While it is thus difficult to classify Miꞌkmaq under traditional word order categories such as SVO or SOV, a more fixed aspect in the language comes in

1820-428: The morphemes tuntu-ssur-qatar-ni-ksaite-ngqiggte-uq with the meanings, reindeer-hunt-future-say-negation-again-third.person.singular.indicative, and except for the morpheme tuntu "reindeer", none of the other morphemes can appear in isolation. Another way to achieve a high degree of synthesis is when languages can form compound words by incorporation of nouns, so that entire words can be incorporated into

1872-425: The morphology of its verbs. Certain areas of internal morphology of verbs in Miꞌkmaq have regular placement: for instance, when the aspect of a verb is included, it appears as the first prefix, while the negative marker always appears directly after the verb root. An example for both of these instances can be seen in the Miꞌkmaq verb kisipawnatqaꞌtiꞌw ( kisi-paw-natq-aꞌti-w ), translated as 'they cannot get out':

1924-585: The most prominent names being Burke, Handrigan, Hall, Hanrahan/ Handrahan, Kelly, Laffin, Miller, and Rockett many of these families have roots going back 7 generations and they continue to live in the community. During the mid-first decade of the 21st century nine large wind turbines were erected in Lingan along the cliffs on the Northern Head. During World War2 the US army had an observation post here to be on

1976-438: The nine numerals: for instance, the number 28 is constructed as tapuisgaꞌq jel ugumuljin , or literally 'twenty and eight'. For numbers beyond 99, Miꞌkmaq uses a pattern similar to that of 60 to 99, with numeral words preceding separate roots that identify higher numbers (such as gasgꞌptnnaqan , meaning 'hundred', or pituimtlnaqn meaning 'thousand'); for instance, 300 is written as siꞌst gasgꞌptnnaqan , while 2,000

2028-534: The number of fluent speakers while still obtaining the dominant language. Community member educators also participated in a program to obtain a Certificate in Aboriginal Literacy Education that increased their fluency in the language. Cape Breton University 's Unamaꞌki College specializes "in Miꞌkmaq history, culture and education". As of 2013, "it has some 250 aboriginal students". "Parents come to me and say they hear their children in

2080-435: The other morphemes can appear in isolation. Whereas isolating languages have a low morpheme-to-word ratio, polysynthetic languages have a very high ratio. There is no generally agreed upon definition of polysynthesis. Generally polysynthetic languages have polypersonal agreement , although some agglutinative languages that are not polysynthetic, such as Basque , Hungarian and Georgian , also have it. Some authors apply

2132-413: The outlook for German U-boats who were confirmed to have been in the immediate vicinity stalking merchant marine convoys out of Sydney Harbour. In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada , Lingan had a population of 229 living in 101 of its 106 total private dwellings, a change of -12.3% from its 2016 population of 261. With a land area of 3.99 km (1.54 sq mi), it had

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2184-456: The prefix kisi marks the verb as being in the completive aspect, whereas the negative marker, w , appears directly after the verb root aꞌti ('the two move'). However, these solidly placed elements of verbs are paired with markers that can appear throughout the word, depending again on emphasis; animacy in particular can appear fluidly throughout verbs. In short, while a few specific aspects of Miꞌkmaq can be predicted, its syntax in general

2236-560: The south, and forms the western shore of Indian Bay, to the east. Lingan was an active coal mining area from the early 19th century until 1999 when the last coal mines in the community operated by the Cape Breton Development Corporation , or DEVCO, were closed. The most recent mines in Lingan operated by DEVCO included the Lingan Colliery and the adjacent Phalen Colliery. They were served by

2288-490: The straight apostrophe ⟨ꞌ⟩ or acute accent ⟨´⟩ instead of the colon ⟨:⟩ to mark vowel length. When the Francis-Smith orthography was first developed, the straight apostrophe (often called a "tick") was the designated symbol for vowel length, but since software applications incorrectly autocorrected the tick to a curly apostrophe, a secondary means of indicating vowel length

2340-422: The term polysynthetic to languages with high morpheme-to-word ratios, but others use it for languages that are highly head-marking , or those that frequently use noun incorporation . Polysynthetic languages can be agglutinative or fusional depending on whether they encode one or multiple grammatical categories per affix . At the same time, the question of whether to call a particular language polysynthetic

2392-731: The varying related words for the color 'white': wapeꞌt in Miꞌkmaq, wapi [wapi] in Maliseet, waapii [wapi] in Munsee, wôbi [wɔ̃bɪ] in Abenaki and wòpe [wɔpe] in Unami. Even outside of the Eastern Algonquian subgroup, there exist similar cognates within the larger Algic family, such as the Cree wāpiskāw [wɔ:bɪska:w] and the Miami-Illinois waapi [wa:pi] . Like many Native American languages, Miꞌkmaq uses

2444-441: The verb word, as baby is incorporated in the English verb babysit . Another common feature of polysynthetic languages is a tendency to use head marking as a means of syntactic cohesion. This means that many polysynthetic languages mark grammatical relations between verbs and their constituents by indexing the constituents on the verb with agreement morphemes, and the relation between noun phrases and their constituents by marking

2496-401: The word for 'Sun', naꞌguꞌset , and the word for 'Earth', ugsꞌtqamu , are animate, and parallel cultural knowledge regarding astronomy cannot be gleaned through the language. Much like grammatical gender , the core concept of animacy is shared across similar languages while the exact connotations animacy has within Miꞌkmaq are unique. Many Acadian French and Chiac words are rooted in

2548-406: The word is still most frequently used to refer to such "sentence words". Often polysynthesis is achieved when languages have extensive agreement between elements verbs and their arguments so that the verb is marked for agreement with the grammatical subject and object. In this way a single word can encode information about all the elements in a transitive clause. In Indo-European languages the verb

2600-489: The work of Edward Sapir , who used it as one of his basic typological categories. Recently, Mark C. Baker has suggested formally defining polysynthesis as a macro-parameter within Noam Chomsky 's principles and parameters theory of grammar. Other linguists question the basic utility of the concept for typology since it covers many separate morphological types that have little else in common. The word "polysynthesis"

2652-621: Was formally accepted, the acute accent. The barred-i ⟨ɨ⟩ for schwa is sometimes replaced by the more common circumflex-i ⟨î⟩ . In Listuguj orthography, an apostrophe marks long vowels as well as schwa, and the letter ⟨g⟩ is used instead of the letter ⟨k⟩ . The 19th-century Pacifique orthography omits ⟨w⟩ and ⟨y⟩ , using ⟨o⟩ and ⟨i⟩ for these. It also ignores vowel length. The 19th-century orthography of Silas Tertius Rand , using characters from Isaac Pitman 's Phonotypic Alphabet ,

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2704-510: Was one of the few Native American languages to have a writing system before European contact. Linguist Peter Bakker identified two Basque loanwords in Miꞌkmaq, presumably because of extensive trade contact between Basque sailors and Native Americans in the 16th century. The overall friendly exchanges starting in mid-16th century between the Miꞌkmaqs and the Basque whalers provided the basis for

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