Loup languages
Extinct Algonquin language of New England
Loup is a term which refers to the Algonquian language varieties spoken in colonial New England as attested in the manuscripts of mid-eighteenth century French missionaries. Loup A was attested in a notebook titled Mots loups (literally translating to 'wolf words'), compiled by Jean-Claude Mathevet, a priest who worked among Algonquian peoples, composing of 124 pages. Loup ('Wolf') was a French colonial ethnographic term, and usage was inconsistent. In modern literature, Loup A refers to the varieties described by Mathevet, and Loup B refers to those described by François-Auguste Magon de Terlaye.
01Classification
Linguist Ives Goddard identified three distinct language varieties each attested in the Loup A and Loup B manuscripts. The languages of Loup A are referred to as Loup 1, Loup 2, and Loup 3; the languages of Loup B are referred to as Loup 4, Loup 5, and Loup 6. According to Goddard, Loup 3 and Loup 4 are the same language.
On the basis of morphophonological comparisons with other Algonquian languages and ethnogeographic context, Goddard identifies the five Loup languages with particular bands of the Pocumtuck Confederacy:
- Nipmuck (Loup 1)
- Norwottuck (Loup 2)
- Pocumtuck (Loup 3 and 4)
- Woronoco (Loup 5)
- Pojassick (Loup 6)
02Phonology
The phonology of Loup A (Nipmuck), reconstructed by Gustafson 2000:
| Bilabial | Alveolar | Palatal/ Postalveolar |
Velar | Glottal | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| plain | pal. | plain | lab. | ||||
| Nasal | m | n | |||||
| Plosive | p | t | tʲ | k | (kʷ) | ||
| Affricate | tʃ | ||||||
| Fricative | s | h | |||||
| Lateral | l | ||||||
| Approximant | w | j | |||||
The vowel sounds likely have the same phonetic quality as other southern New England Algonquian languages. The short vowels /i o e a/ may represent the sounds as [ɪ], [ʊ], [ɛ, ə], and [ʌ], while the long vowels /iː/, /oː/, and /ã/ correspond to /i/, /o/, and /ã/.
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Loup languages”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- Chaubunagungamaug lake sign.jpg by Bree from Worcester, MA, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0
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