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73-460: Unami is one of two Delaware languages ; the other is Munsee . The last fluent Unami speaker in the United States, Edward Thompson, of the federally recognized Delaware Tribe of Indians , died on August 31, 2002. His sister Nora Thompson Dean (1907–1984) provided valuable information about the language to linguists and other scholars. Lenni-Lenape literally means 'Men of Men', but

146-449: A breve – /ĭ, ĕ, ŏ/ – are also strong vowels because they are treated morphophonemically as long vowels, even though they are pronounced as short. In a sequence of syllables containing a short vowel followed by a consonant (C) or consonant and /w/ (Cw), the odd-numbered vowels are weak, and the even numbered vowels are strong. Furthermore, some short vowels are strong even in a weakening environment; such exceptions are often marked with

219-525: A grave accent . Additionally, some vowels which are unaffected by predicted vowel syncope are marked with an acute accent . There is a predictable tendency, additionally, to nasalize and lengthen a vowel before /ns/ and /nš/ , so that /lowé·nso/ ('his name is [such]') is realized closer to [luwé̹·su] from underlying /ələwe·nsəw/ . Syllable structure is diverse, permitting a certain amount of consonant clustering. The following consonant clusters can occur: Additionally, certain consonants may combine with

292-506: A non-syllabic u in diphthongs / u̯ / , analogous to Belarusian ў . In the transcription of Sinhala , the breve over an m or an n indicates a prenasalized consonant ; for example, n̆da is used to represent [ⁿda] . In the International Phonetic Alphabet , a breve over a phonetic symbol is used to indicate extra-shortness . In other languages, it is used for other purposes. The breve below

365-646: A breve is used for Й . In Belarusian , it is used for both the Cyrillic Ў (semivowel U) and in the Latin ( Łacinka ) Ŭ . Ў was also used in Cyrillic Uzbek under the Soviet Union . The Moldovan Cyrillic alphabet uses a breve on Ӂ to represent a voiced postalveolar affricate /d͡ʒ/ (corresponding to ⟨g⟩ before a front vowel in the Latin script for Moldovan ). In Chuvash ,

438-511: A breve is used for Cyrillic letters Ӑ ( A -breve) and Ӗ ( E -breve). In Itelmen orthography, it is used for Ӑ, О̆ and Ў. The traditional Cyrillic breve differs in shape and is thicker on the edges of the curve and thinner in the middle, as opposed to the Latin one, but the Unicode encoding is the same. In Emilian , ĕ ŏ are used to represent [ɛ, ɔ] in dialects where also long [ɛː, ɔː] occur. In Esperanto , u with breve (ŭ) represents

511-565: A genetic subgroup consisting of the Delaware languages and Mahican , sometimes referred to as Delawaran . Nonetheless Unami and Munsee are more closely related to each other than to Mahican. Some historical evidence suggests commonalities between Mahican and Munsee. The line of historical descent is therefore Proto-Algonquian > Proto-Eastern Algonquian > Delawarean > Common Delaware + Mahican, with Common Delaware splitting into Munsee and Unami. Lenni Lenape means 'Human Beings' or

584-959: A self-designation in English. The Unamis residing in Oklahoma are sometimes referred to as Oklahoma Delaware , while the Munsees in Ontario are sometimes referred to as Ontario Delaware or Canadian Delaware. Munsee-speaking residents of Moraviantown use the English term Munsee to refer to residents of Munceytown, approximately 50 km (31 mi) to the east and refer to themselves in English as "Delaware", and in Munsee as /lənáːpeːw/ 'Delaware person, Indian'. Oklahoma Delawares refer to Ontario Delaware as /mwə́nsi/ or /mɔ́nsi/ , terms that are also used for people of Munsee ancestry in their own communities. Some Delawares at Moraviantown also use

657-480: A significant number of phonological rules in common. For example, both languages share the same basic rules for assigning syllable weight and stress. However, Unami has innovated by regularizing the assignment of stress in some verb forms so that the penultimate syllable is stressed even when the stress assignment rule would predict stress on the antepenultimate syllable. As well, Unami has innovated relative to Munsee by adding phonological rules that significantly change

730-547: A writing system with conventional phonetic symbols. The table below presents a sample of Unami words, written first in a linguistically oriented transcription, followed by the same words written in a practical system. The linguistic system uses the acute accent to indicate predictable stress and a raised dot (·) to indicate vowel and consonant length. The practical system interprets the contrast between long and corresponding short vowels as one of quality, using acute and grave accents to indicate vowel quality. Stress, which as noted

803-423: Is as follows: *i· (from PEA merger of Proto-Algonquian (PA *i· and *i to PEA *i· ), *o· (from PEA merger of PA *o· and *o ), *e· (from Proto-Algonquian *e· ), and *a· (from Proto-Algonquian *a· ; the short vowels are *ə (from Proto-Algonquian *e ), and *a (from Proto-Algonquian *a ). This system was continued down to Common Delaware, but Munsee and Unami have innovated separately with respect to

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876-630: Is considered a genetic subgroup within the Algonquian family , that is, the Eastern Algonquian languages share a sufficient number of common innovations to suggest that they descend from a common intermediate source, Proto-Eastern Algonquian. The linguistic closeness of Munsee and Unami entails that they share an immediate common ancestor which may be called Common Delaware; the two languages have diverged in distinct ways from Common Delaware. Several shared phonological innovations support

949-498: Is diacritic with the same appearance as the conventional breve, except that it is placed under the letter (or space) to be marked. There are just two precomposed character code-points: U+1E2A Ḫ LATIN CAPITAL LETTER H WITH BREVE BELOW and U+1E2B ḫ LATIN SMALL LETTER H WITH BREVE BELOW . For other uses, it is rendered as a combining character , U+032E ◌̮ COMBINING BREVE BELOW . Traditional editions of Spanish vocal sheet music use

1022-508: Is filled only for transitive verbs and help describe the relationship between the two participants by indicating which is the agent and which is the object . The direct and inverse theme signs indicate the direction of the verb along a spectrum what might be called distance. From least to most distant the participants are: (1) first or second; (2) indefinite (only as subject); (3) proximate third person; (4) obviative third person; (5) farther obviative third person; (6) inanimate (subject only). If

1095-418: Is found in three conjunct endings: /-ak/ , /-at/ , and /-an/ . In the last case, the accent shifts to the penultimate /-an/ only if it would otherwise fall on an antepenultimate short vowel, and if the consonant between them is voiced. Unami phonology is extremely complex, with various morphophonological rules, and a theoretical form usually undergoes a set of predictable phonological processes to produce

1168-766: Is often used for these purposes, as other diacritics may be used above vowels (see below). In the following chart, the usual transcription used in the sources is given with the IPA in brackets. Unami vowels are presented as organized into contrasting long–short pairs. One asymmetry is that high short /u/ is paired with long /oː/ , and the pairing of long and short /ə/ is noteworthy. /ə/ and /o/ are not distinguishable before /w/ , /m/ , and /kw/ . Additionally, vowels are classified as strong and weak, which plays an important role in determining stress (see below). Long vowels and vowels before consonant clusters are automatically strong. Certain short vowels, which are differentiated with

1241-406: Is often used that way in dictionaries and textbooks of Latin , Ancient Greek , Tuareg and other languages. However, there is a frequent convention of indicating only the long vowels. It is then understood that a vowel with no macron is short. If the vowel length is unknown, a breve as well as a macron are used in historical linguistics (Ā̆ ā̆ Ē̆ ē̆ Ī̆ ī̆ Ō̆ ō̆ Ū̆ ū̆ Ȳ̆ ȳ̆). In Cyrillic script ,

1314-512: Is one of the least studied aspects of the Unami language; there is much more data on morphology, because of an especial focus on reconstructing Proto-Algonquian. Some examples of complex sentences in Unami include: Delaware languages The Delaware languages , also known as the Lenape languages (Delaware: Lënapei èlixsuwakàn ), are Munsee and Unami , two closely related languages of

1387-619: Is part of the Algonquian branch of the Algic language family, and is part of the Eastern Algonquian language grouping which is considered to be a genetically related sub-grouping of Algonquian . The languages of the Algonquian family constitute a group of historically related languages descended from a common source language, Proto-Algonquian , which was descended from Algic. The Algonquian languages are spoken across Canada from

1460-401: Is predictable, and consonant length are not indicated in the practical system. The table below presents a sample of Munsee words, written first in a linguistically oriented transcription, followed by the same words written in a practical system. The linguistic system uses a raised dot ⟨·⟩ to indicate vowel length. Although stress is mostly predictable, the linguistic system uses

1533-464: Is reflected in the following borrowed words. More recent borrowings tend to be from English such as the following Munsee loan words: ahtamó·mpi·l 'automobile'; kátəl 'cutter'; nfó·təw 's/he votes'. There is one known Swedish loan word in Unami: típa·s 'chicken', from Swedish tippa , 'a call to chickens'. There is no standard writing system for either Munsee or Unami. However,

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1606-491: Is retained even when the thematic element is dropped. The contrast between both categories is sharper in the Central Algonquian languages, whose theme sign has a more complex series of alternants. The second position consists of diminutives in 2 /-tī/ and pejoratives in 2 /-šī/ (in both of these, the /-ī/ is unstable.) An example of a diminutive is /pé·t·o/ ('the little one comes'), contrasted with

1679-525: Is the name Unami speakers also use for their own language in English, whereas Munsee speakers call their language in English Lunaapeew . Uniquely among scholars, Kraft uses Lenape as a cover term to refer to all Delaware-speaking groups. Munsee speakers refer to their language as /hə̀lə̆ni·xsəwá·kan/ , meaning "speaking the Delaware language". Munsee and Unami have similar but not identical inventories of consonants and vowels, and have

1752-519: Is translated to mean 'Original People'. The Lenape names for the areas they inhabited were Scheyichbi (i.e. New Jersey), which means 'water's edge', and Lenapehoking , meaning 'in the land of the Delaware Indians'. It describes the ancient homeland of all Delaware Indians, both Unami and Munsee. The English named the river running through much of the traditional range of the Lenape after

1825-453: Is treated as animate in the sentence šá·i a· ăsǝ́nak kǝnčí·mowak ('the stones would immediately cry out'). Unami is a highly agglutinative , polysynthetic language. Verbs in Unami are marked for person and number, and contain inflectional elements of order (independent, conjunct, and imperative), aspect, and the negative. A table of the personal pronouns is given below. The first person plural ("we") may be either inclusive (including

1898-792: Is used to indicate length of a preceding consonant or vowel. A full analysis and description of the status of the long consonants is not available, and more than one analysis of Delaware consonants has been proposed. Some analyses only recognize long stops and fricatives as predictable, i.e. as arising by rule. The contrastive long consonants are described as having low functional yield, that is, they differentiate relatively few pairs of words, but nonetheless do occur in contrasting environments. Both languages have rules that lengthen consonants in certain environments. Several additional consonants occur in Munsee loan words: /f/ in e.g. nə̀fó·ti 'I vote'; /r/ in ntáyrəm . A number of alternate analyses of Munsee and Unami vowels have been proposed. In one,

1971-477: The /o·/ would be phonetically shortened via rule U-4a. Examples include: /ntá·mwi/ ('I get up from lying') versus /á·mwi·(w)/ ('he gets up'). Two roots with initial /t/ extend the syllable with /-ən/ when adding prefixes; these roots are /tal-/ ('there') and /tax-/ ('so many'), e.g. náni nt ən tala·wsí·ne·n ('that is where we live [our lives]') from the animate intransitive stem /tala·wəsi·/ . Prefixes are mutually exclusive and are selected based on

2044-531: The Delaware Water Gap and the Raritan Valley . Three dialects of Unami are distinguished: Northern Unami, Southern Unami, and Unalachtigo. Northern Unami, now extinct, is recorded in large amounts of materials collected by Moravian missionaries but is not reflected in the speech of any modern groups. The Northern Unami groups were south of the Munsee groups, with the southern boundary of

2117-518: The Eastern Algonquian subgroup of the Algonquian language family . Munsee and Unami were spoken aboriginally by the Lenape people in the vicinity of the modern New York City area in the United States , including western Long Island , Manhattan Island , Staten Island , as well as adjacent areas on the mainland: southeastern New York State , eastern Pennsylvania , New Jersey , Connecticut, Maryland, and Delaware . The Lenape language

2190-551: The caron ( ◌̌ , the wedge or háček in Czech , mäkčeň in Slovak ) but is rounded, in contrast to the angular tip of the caron. In many forms of Latin , ◌̆ is used for a shorter, softer variant of a vowel, such as "Ĭ", where the sound is nearly identical to the English /i/. (See: Latin IPA ) The breve sign indicates a short vowel, as opposed to the macron ( ◌̄ ), which indicates long vowels, in academic transcription. It

2263-574: The exonym Delaware for almost all the Lenape people living along this river and its tributaries. It is estimated that as late as the 17th century there were approximately forty Lenape local village bands with populations of possibly a few hundred persons per group. Estimates for the early contact period vary considerably, with a range of 8,000 – 12,000 given. Other estimates for approximately 1600 AD suggest 6,500 Unami and 4,500 Munsee, with data lacking for Long Island Munsee. These groups were never united politically or linguistically, and

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2336-605: The 'Real People' in the Unami language. Their autonym is also spelled Lennape or Lenapi , in Unami Lënape and in Munsee Lunaapeew meaning 'the people.' The term Delaware was used by the English, who named the people for their territory by the Delaware River . They named the river in honor of Lord De La Warr , the governor of the colony at Jamestown, Virginia . The English colonists used

2409-610: The Absentee Delaware of Caddo County. Until recently there were a small number of Unami speakers in Oklahoma; the language is now extinct there as a first language, but is spoken fluently as a learned language by enrolled members of the two Delaware tribes in Oklahoma. Some language revitalization work is underway by the Delaware Tribe of Indians. Equally affected by consolidation and dispersal, Munsee groups moved to several locations in southern Ontario as early as

2482-539: The Delaware were Dutch explorers and traders, and loan words from Dutch are particularly common. Dutch is the primary source of loan words in Munsee and Unami. Because many of the early encounters between Delaware speakers and Dutch explorers and settlers occurred in Munsee territory, Dutch loanwords are particularly common in Munsee, although there are also a number in Unami as well. Many Delaware borrowings from Dutch are nouns that name items of material culture that were presumably salient or novel for Delaware speakers, as

2555-733: The Grand River in Six Nations and to rapidly vanish in Munsee-Delaware Nation. Only in Moraviantown the Lenape language was used on a daily basis from a majority of the nation and help on the preservation of the language. Today Munsee survives only at Moraviantown, where there are two fluent first language speakers aged 77 and 90 as of 2018. There are no fluent speakers left in the Munsee-Delaware nation of

2628-513: The Lenape people living in Canada; however, there are members that are working to revitalize the language within the community. From 2009 through at least 2014, a Lenape language class was taught at Swarthmore College in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania . The class focused on beginner phrases and grammar, but also included information about the history and culture of the Lenape people. Books used in

2701-628: The Moravian missionary David Zeisberger and published in a translation from German into English by Peter Stephen du Ponceau in 1827. Zeisberger does not even mention the "dialect" names when describing varying grammatical features, while the translator refers to them in two annotations. Despite their relative closeness the two are sufficiently distinguished by features of syntax, phonology, and vocabulary that speakers of both consider them not mutually intelligible so that, more recently, linguists have treated them as separate languages. Munsee Delaware

2774-804: The Munsee dialect. In Aboriginal teaching materials used by provincial governments this newest standard for Munsee is used in order to teach Muncy to children in the school system. Linguists have tended to use common phonetic transcription symbols of the type found in the International Phonetic Alphabet or similar Americanist symbols in order to represent sounds that are not consistently represented in conventional standard writing systems. Europeans writing down Delaware words and sentences have tended to use adaptations of European alphabets and associated conventions. The quality of such renditions have varied widely, as Europeans attempted to record sounds and sound combinations they were not familiar with. Practical orthographies for both Munsee and Unami have been created in

2847-612: The Northern Unami area being at Tohickon Creek on the west bank of the Delaware River and between Burlington and Trenton on the east bank. The poorly known Unalachtigo dialect is described as having been spoken in the area between Northern and Southern Unami, with only a small amount of evidence from one group. Southern Unami, to the south of the Northern Unami-Unalachtigo area, is reflected in

2920-821: The Rocky Mountains to the Atlantic coast; on the American Plains; south of the Great Lakes; and on the Atlantic coast. Many of the Algonquian languages are now sleeping. The Eastern Algonquian languages , spoken on the Atlantic coast from what are now called the Canadian Maritime provinces to what is now called North Carolina ; many of the languages are now sleeping, and some are known only from very fragmentary records. Eastern Algonquian

2993-530: The Unami Delaware spoken by Delawares in Oklahoma. Names for the speakers of Munsee and Unami are used in complex ways in both English and the Lenape language. The Unami dialect (called a language by non-native speaker students of Lenape) is sometimes called Delaware or Delaware proper, reflecting the original application of the term Delaware to Unami speakers. Both Munsee and Unami speakers use Delaware if enrolled and Lenape if not enrolled as

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3066-543: The acute accent to indicate predictable main stress. As well, predictable voiceless or murmured /ă/ is indicated with the breve accent ⟨˘⟩ . Similarly, the breve accent is used to indicate an ultra-short [ə] that typically occurs before a single voiced consonant followed by a vowel. The practical system indicates vowel length by doubling the vowel letter, and maintains the linɡuistic system's practices for marking stress and voiceless/ultra-short vowels. The practical system uses orthographic ⟨sh⟩ for

3139-471: The addressee) or exclusive. Following are tables exemplifying verbal paradigms in Unami in the independent order, indicative mood and present tense. The TI themes have the same inflection as AI stems for all conjuncts. (Indefinite subject forms of consonant-final themes are not attested, but the vowel-final themes follow the AI pattern.) Three forms are illustrated from each type. Verbal prefixes are used only in

3212-587: The class included Conversations in Lenape Language and Advanced Supplements (both written by De Paul). Munsee and Unami are linguistically very similar. They are both dialects of one language by Lenape speakers, and together are referred to as the language of the Lenni Lenape or Delaware Indians, as can be seen in the Grammar of the language of the Lenni Lenape or Delaware Indians , written by

3285-445: The context of various language preservation and documentation projects. A recent bilingual dictionary of Munsee uses a practical orthography derived from a linguistic transcription system for Munsee. The same system is also used in a recent word book produced locally at Moraviantown. The online Unami Lenape Talking Dictionary uses a practical system distinct from that for Munsee. However, other practically oriented Unami materials use

3358-553: The exception of /ə/ . In cells with two vowels, the first is long. Similarly, Unami vowels have also been analysed as organized into contrasting long-short pairs. One asymmetry is that high short /u/ is paired with long /o·/ , and the pairing of long and short /ə/ is noteworthy. In cells with two vowels, the first is long. Both Munsee and Unami have loan words from European languages, reflecting early patterns of contact between Delaware speakers and European traders and settlers. The first Europeans to have sustained contact with

3431-521: The first governor of the Jamestown Colony , Lord De La Warr , and consequently referred to the people who lived around the river as "Delaware Indians". Unami is an Eastern Algonquian language . The hypothetical common ancestor language from which the Eastern Algonquian languages descend is Proto-Eastern Algonquian (PEA). An intermediate group, Delawarean , that is a descendant of Proto-Eastern Algonquian consists of Mahican and Common Delaware,

3504-441: The following rule: if one of the participants is second person, the second person prefix is used; if not, if one of the participants is the first person, then the first person prefix is used; if none of these applies, other forms, if they take a prefix, take the third person prefix. This is the well-known Algonquian 2-1-3 precedence rule. Suffixes are grouped into eight positional classes. These are: The first position (theme signs)

3577-445: The gradual displacement of some of the Lenape people from their aboriginal homeland, in a series of population movements of genocidal intent involving forced relocation and consolidation of small local groups, extending over a period of more than two hundred years. This is also referred to as The Long Walk. It was due to the new United States breaking the first treaty it had ever signed. The currently used names were gradually applied to

3650-466: The inanimate, obviative, and absentative categories are more marked than their opposites (i.e. animate, proximate, and nonabsentative), but it is not clear whether animacy or inanimacy is the more marked of the opposition. The first and second persons are not marked for presence or obviation and are always animate. The first mentioned and/or primary animate third person is proximate; all other third persons are obviative , unless they act in conjunction with

3723-414: The independent order, although some forms of the independent order lack a prefix. There are three of them: /n-/ (first person), /k-/ (second person), and /w-/ (third person). If a stem has an underlying initial vowel, a /t/ is inserted after the prefix, and before this and other stem-initial consonants a /ə/ is inserted. Sometimes, this /ə/ contracts with a stem-initial /wə/ to /o·/ except when

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3796-755: The language. Some descriptions of the Northern Unami dialect as spoken during the 18th century are given by Moravian missionary John Heckewelder . Unami has been analyzed as having contrastive geminate and non-geminate obstruent consonants, although this contrast is relatively weak. A full analysis of the status of the geminates, also known as long consonants, is not available, and more than one analysis of Delaware consonants has been proposed. The long consonants are described as having low functional yield, and they differentiate relatively few pairs of words but occur in contrasting environments. Some examples of contrastive geminate pairs include: ná k·ə́nt ka·n 'then you (sg.) danced' versus ná kə́nt ka·n 'then there

3869-558: The larger groups resulting from the genocidal forced relocation policy of the United States. The ultimate result was the displacement of virtually all Lenape-speaking people from the region to present-day Oklahoma , Kansas , Wisconsin , Upstate New York , and Canada . Two distinct Unami-speaking groups emerged in Oklahoma in the late 19th century, the Registered (Cherokee) Delaware in Washington, Nowata, and Craig Counties, and

3942-535: The late 18th century, to Moraviantown , Munceytown , and Six Nations . Several different patterns of migration led to groups of Munsee speakers moving to Stockbridge in present-day Wisconsin , Cattaraugus in present-day New York state, and Kansas . In 1892 the Munsee-Delaware and Moraviantown children were sent to Mount Elgin Residential School where only English language was permitted to be spoken. The Lenape language began its disappearance along

4015-571: The latter being a further subgroup comprising Munsee Delaware and Unami Delaware. The justification for Delawarean as an intermediate subgroup rests upon the high degree of similarity between Mahican and the two Delaware languages, but relatively little detailed argumentation in support of Delawarean has been adduced. Compared to Munsee, Unami has undergone extensive phonological innovation, coupled with morphological regularization . The PEA vowel system consisted of four long vowels *i·, *o·, *e·, *a·, and two short vowels *a and ə. The vowel history

4088-412: The names Delaware, Munsee, and Unami postdate the period of consolidation of these local groups. The earliest use of the term Munsee was recorded in 1727, and Unami in 1757. At the time of first contact of Europeans colonizers in the 17th century, the Lenape resided in relatively small communities consisting of a few hundred people. The intensity of contact with European settlers resulted in

4161-475: The negative affix 4 /-(ō)w(ī)/ and prohibitive imperative and future imperative forms, which have complex series of alternants. Position five contains the central endings which index the central participant of each form, except those using TA theme signs 1 /-i·/ and 1 /-əl/ ; Position six contains the affix endings: /-pan/ marks the preterite, and /sa/ ~ /shan/ mark the present. Position seven contains peripheral endings, which are used to mark

4234-461: The nominal category of some 3rd person participants in forms in the independent and conjunct (but not imperative) orders. Position eight reflects the subjunctive, prohibitive, and future modes. Unami is, like many Algonquian languages , polysynthetic and highly agglutinative. This means that most of the information is encoded in the verb (sometimes with whole words being incorporated into the stem), making word order more fluid than in English. Syntax

4307-404: The pejorative /pé·šo/ ('the undesirable one came'). The use of /t/ in the formation of diminutives seems to be an innovation of Unami, as many other Algonquian languages use */s/ or */ʃ/ (in fact, the diminutive of Munsee is /-šī/ ). In position three are the affixes 3 /-lī/ , which marks the obviative third person, and 3 /-h(ə)tī/ , which marks the plural. Position four contains

4380-603: The people who are enrolled in the Delaware Tribe of Indians have developed a spelling system that is the most recent standard for writing in the Unami dialect. Out of respect to this intellectual property of The Delaware Tribe of Indians their standard for writing in the Unami dialect should be used. As well, the Muncy at the Six Nations Reserve in what is now called Canada have done the same standardization for

4453-552: The phonetic symbol /š/ , and ⟨ch⟩ for the phonetic symbol /č/ . Breve A breve ( / ˈ b r iː v / BREEV , less often / ˈ b r ɛ v / BREV , neuter form of the Latin brevis "short, brief") is the diacritic mark ◌̆ , shaped like the bottom half of a circle. As used in Ancient Greek , it is also called brachy , βραχύ . It resembles

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4526-543: The pronunciation of many Unami words relative to the corresponding Munsee words. This section focuses upon presenting general information about Munsee and Unami sounds and phonology, with detailed discussion reserved for entries for each language. Munsee and Unami have the same basic inventories of consonants, as in the following chart. In addition, Unami is analysed as having contrastive long voiceless stops: p· , t· , č· , k· ; and long voiceless fricatives: s· , š· , and x· . The raised dot /·/

4599-404: The proximate participant. Verbs are also inflected to indicate whether the verbal action is proximate on obviate or obviate on proximate. Third-person participants can be marked by a special set of endings indicating their absence from the general area of the focus of discourse. For example, absentative endings are used when speaking of the deceased (even if the corpse is physically present), as in

4672-409: The semivowel /w/ . Some underlying forms may also contain /sw/ and /šw/ , but these are always removed by morphophonemic processes. Stress is generally predictable in Unami. The rightmost nonfinal strong vowel is stressed, or a strong vowel in final position if it is the only one in the word. Often when stress would be expected to fall on the antepenult it is shifted to the penult . This change

4745-984: The sentence no·lăčahko·ná·na nkahe·səná·na ('our (excl.) mother (abv.) treated us well'), in which both verb and noun are marked with the absentative /-a/ ending. Nouns in Unami are classified as animate or inanimate, which is reflected in verbal conjugation. Animate nouns denote human beings, animals, spirits, trees, and certain fruits, tubers, root vegetables, and other unpredictable exceptions like ko·n ('snow') and nhíkaš ('my fingernail'). (However, berries, nuts, and vegetables growing above ground are generally inanimate.) Thus, té·hi·m ('strawberry'), xáskwi·m ('corn'), ke·skúnthak ('pumpkin'), mpi ('water'), and nhíka·t ('my leg') are inanimate, while lə́nu ('man'), xho·k ('snake'), mahtán'tu ('Devil') and hɔ́pəni·s ('potato') are animate. However, traditionally inanimate nouns which are directly addressed or personified are treated as animate. Thus, traditionally inanimate ăsǝ́n ('stone')

4818-748: The sounds /ə/ and /a/ become null (disappear) in the context of when they are weak and appear before either /h/ or /x/ and another vowel. The slash means 'in the context of', and the underscore _ indicates where the /ə/ or /a/ must occur. In some notations the pound symbol (#) appears, indicating word boundaries (either the beginning or end). Regular parenthesis indicate optional conditions when framing phonemes or additional information about phonemes: "C=stop". The capital letters C, V, and N mean 'consonant', 'vowel', and 'nasal' respectively. Third person participants are marked for gender (animate versus inanimate), obviation ( proximate versus obviative ), and presence (nonabsentative versus absentative). Generally,

4891-406: The subject is less distant than the object, the direct theme is used; if the subject is more distant, the inverse signs are used. After transitive animate (TA) verb stems appear one of the four following theme signs: For transitive inanimate (TI) verbs, there appears the theme sign pertaining to the appropriate TI class: For Class 2 TI theme signs, in certain derivational categories, the theme sign

4964-460: The term Christian Indian as a preferred self-designation in English. The equivalent Munsee term is ké·ntə̆we·s , meaning "one who prays, Moravian convert". Munsee speakers refer to Oklahoma Delawares as Unami in English or /wə̆ná·mi·w/ in Munsee. The Oklahoma Delawares refer to themselves in English as Delaware and in Unami as /ləná·p·e/ . The name Lenape , which is sometimes used in English for both Delaware languages together,

5037-518: The true form found in speech. There are about 17 such rules common to both Munsee and Unami, and another 28 unique to Unami, though this analysis ignores predictable exceptions, such as the class of static words which may skip many of these rules. These rules govern things such as consonant lengthening/shortening, vowel syncopation, metathesis, vowel coloring, etc. A list of processes unique to Unami follow. These are written in linguistic notation. Thus, {ə,a} → ∅ / _{h, x}V when {ə,a} are weak means that

5110-411: The two languages are analysed as having the same basic vowel system, consisting of four long vowels /i· o· e· a·/ , and two short vowels /ə a/ . This vowel system is equivalent to the vowel system reconstructed for Proto-Eastern-Algonquian. Alternative analyses reflect several differences between the two languages. In this analysis Munsee is analysed as having contrasting length in all positions, with

5183-1029: The vowel systems. The dominant modern version of the Southern Unami dialect called Lenape is taught by the Delaware Tribe of Indians , headquartered in Bartlesville, Oklahoma , which manages the Lenape Language Preservation Project. The same dialect was spoken by the Delaware Nation in Anadarko in the southwestern part of Oklahoma. Both Oklahoma and Delaware tribes have recorded native speakers and produced written lessons for instruction, which are available for sale from Various Indian Peoples Publishing Company, located in Texas . These efforts, in conjunction with other community efforts comprise an attempt to preserve

5256-414: Was dancing'; ní p·ɔ́·m 'his thigh' versus ní pɔ́·m 'the ham'; and nsa· s·a ·k·ənə́mən 'I stuck it out repeatedly' versus nsa· sa ·k·ənə́mən 'I stuck it out slowly'. There are also rules that lengthen consonants in certain environments. The length mark (ː) is used to indicate gemination of a preceding consonant or vowel length , although in the literature on Unami the raised dot (·)

5329-488: Was spoken in the central and lower Hudson River Valley , western Long Island , the upper Delaware River Valley , and the northern third of New Jersey in present-day North Jersey . While dialect variation in Munsee was likely there is no information about possible dialectal subgroupings. Unami Delaware was spoken in the area south of Munsee speakers in the Delaware River Valley and New Jersey, south of

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