Munsee language
Munsee is an endangered language of the Eastern Algonquian subgroup of the Algonquian language family, itself a branch of the Algic language family. Munsee is one of two Delaware languages. It is very closely related to the Unami Delaware, but the two are sufficiently different that they are considered separate languages. Munsee was spoken aboriginally by Lenape 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, the northern third of New Jersey, and northeastern Pennsylvania.
As of 2018, Munsee was spoken only on the Moraviantown Reserve in Ontario, Canada, by two elderly individuals, aged 77 and 90, making it critically endangered. As of 2022, only one elderly native speaker remained. When the number of speakers was somewhat larger, the language was reported to differ between individual speakers, each having a personal dialect. There has been interest in learning the language by younger individuals. Some researchers and universities have partnered with indigenous communities in an effort to revitalize the language, notably Montclair State University and the University of Toronto.
Classification
Munsee is an Eastern Algonquian language, which is the sole recognized genetic subgroup descending from Proto-Algonquian, the common ancestor language of the Algonquian language family. Munsee is very closely related to Unami Delaware. Munsee and Unami constitute the Delaware languages, comprising a subgroup within Eastern Algonquian. Taken together with Mahican, the Delaware languages constitute Delawaran, a subgroup within Eastern Algonquian.The term Munsee developed as an English name for the aggregated group that formed along the upper Delaware River north of the Delaware Water Gap. Other Munsee dialect speakers joined the Minisink group; the earliest recorded mention of Munsee dates from 1725. Minisink is a Munsee term meaning, and is to be transcribed mə̆nə́sənk. It is the locative form of a now disused word ; cognates in other Algonquian languages are e.g. Ojibwe,. Orthographic in the form Minisink is the modern Munsee locative suffix . The term Munsee is the English adaptation of a regularly formed word, mə́n'si·w.
Over time the British extended the term Munsee to any speaker of the Munsee language. Attempts to derive Munsee from a word meaning or, as proposed by Brinton, are incorrect. Kraft's claim that Munsee is not an indigenous term, and that it results from a "corruption" of English use of Minisink is incorrect. The term follows a regular pattern of Munsee word formation.
Ethnonyms
Names for the speakers of Munsee are used in complex ways in both English and in Munsee. The Unami language is sometimes treated as "Delaware" or "Delaware proper", reflecting the original application of the term Delaware to Unami speakers, but Munsee speakers use Delaware as a self-designation in English. The term Delaware was originally applied by British colonists to Unami speakers living along the Delaware River, which is named after Lord De La Warr, the first governor of Virginia. The term was gradually extended to refer to all Delaware groups.The Munsee 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 to the east. In English, Moraviantown residents call themselves Delaware, and in Munsee .
Some Delaware at Moraviantown also use the term Christian Indian as a preferred self-designation in English. The equivalent Munsee term is ké·ntə̆we·s. Munsee speakers refer to Oklahoma Delaware as Unami in English or in Munsee. The English term Lenape is of Unami origin, and is used in English as a self-designation by speakers of Unami;
Exceptionally among scholars, Kraft uses Lenape as an English-language cover term to refer to all Delaware-speaking groups, while noting that this usage is "not entirely appropriate".
Munsee speakers refer to their language as, literally.
Geographic distribution
Speakers of Munsee originally resided in the greater Manhattan area, the drainage of the Lower Hudson River valley, and the upper Delaware River. The arrival of European explorers, traders and settlers resulted in the progressive displacement of Munsee people over a period of several centuries. Munsee groups affected by this process ultimately moved away from their homeland to communities in both the United States and Canada.In the 20th century, surviving Munsee speakers in Canada lived at Six Nations, Ontario; Munceytown, Ontario; and Moraviantown Reserve. Now extinct in the first two locations, the language is used only by a few elders at Moraviantown, Ontario.
Since the early 21st century, the language has been taught to tribal members of the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohican Native Americans, and the Delaware Nation, Moraviantown Reserve.
Original location
The southern boundary of Munsee territory was the area north of the Delaware Water Gap, following the river system southeast along the Raritan River to the Atlantic Ocean. To the south of the Munsee were the Unami Delaware. To the north were the Algonquian Mahican, and to the east were the Eastern Long Island peoples, who also spoke Algonquian languages, such as Unquachog and southern New England languages, such as Quiripi.Aboriginally, and for a period subsequent to the arrival of Europeans, Munsee was spoken within a series of small and largely autonomous local bands, located primarily within the drainage of the Hudson and upper Delaware rivers, the major river systems of the area. The general pattern, found throughout the Eastern Algonquian area, was one in which indigenous groups resided along the drainages of major river systems, with divisions between upriver and downriver groupings. Named groups were found on the major tributaries; they developed larger sites on the main streams and smaller camps at the headwaters and on feeder streams. Estimates vary, but these local groups may have had a population of up to two hundred people each. These groups spoke localized varieties of the language now called Munsee, but there is little information on dialect variation within the Munsee-speaking area.
The primary known named Munsee groups, from north to south on the west side of the Hudson River, were the
- Esopus, west of the Hudson River in the Hudson River watershed ;
- Minisink ;
- Haverstraw, Tappan, and Hackensack, south of the Hudson Highlands west of the Hudson River;
- Raritan, who originally resided on the lower Raritan River and moved inland;
- Wiechquaeskeck, from east of the Hudson who migrated to the lower Raritan after 1649; with the
- Navasink, to the east along the north shore of New Jersey east of the Delaware River.
- Kichtawank;
- Sinsink;
- Rechgawawank;
- Nayack;
- Marechkawieck, with the Canarsee and Rockaway on western Long Island; and
- Massapequa and Matinecock on central Long Island, who may have been Munsee or perhaps were the predecessors of the Unquachog group identified in the eighteenth century.
Phonology
Munsee phonology is complex but regular in many regards. Metrical rules of syllable weight assignment play a key role in the assignment of word-level stress, and also determine the form of rules of vowel syncope that produce complex but mostly regular alternations in the forms of words. Word-level stress is largely predictable, with exceptions occurring primarily in loan words, reduplicated forms, and in words where historical change has made historically transparent alternations more opaque.Consonants
Munsee has the following inventory of consonants; International Phonetic Alphabet values are given in brackets.Some loanwords from English contain and : fé·li·n ; ntáyrəm.
Vowels
Different analyses of the Munsee vowel system have been proposed. Goddard presents an analysis in which Munsee and Unami have the same vowel system, unchanged from the Proto-Eastern-Algonquian vowel system. In this analysis, there are four long vowels and two short vowels. Vowel length is indicated with a raised dot. However, in modern Munsee there are several sources of new short that arise from such sources as reduplication, loan words, and other various phonological changes, and that cannot be derived from other underlying vowels. Hence an analysis in which there are four positions that have contrastive vowel length, as well as, is appropriate.The short vowel has the phonetic value. Short has values centring on, with occurring before . Short has values centring on. The long vowels have the primary values,,, and, with varying to, and after labial consonants.
Syllable weight
Syllable weight plays a significant role in Munsee phonology, determining stress placement and the deletion of certain short vowels. All syllables containing long vowels are strong. Any short vowel in a closed syllable is strong. Counting left to right, in a sequence of two or more open syllables containing short vowels, the odd-numbered syllable is weak and the even-numbered syllable is strong. As well, certain syllables containing short vowels must exceptionally be marked as strong.In words longer than two syllables, the final syllable is excluded from consideration of stress placement, i.e. is extrametrical, and the last strong syllable preceding the final syllable in the word receives the main stress.
payaxkhı́·kan
né·wake
In disyllabic words a strong penultimate syllable receives primary stress.
á·mwi·w
In a disyllable with a weak penultimate syllable, the final syllable is strong, and receives primary stress.
ăsə́n