| Pronunciation | lu loo |
|---|---|
| States | United States |
| Region | Massachusetts, Connecticut |
| Ethnicity | Nipmuck |
| Extinct | 18th century |
| Familycolor | Algic |
| Fam 1 | Algic |
| Fam 2 | Algonquian |
| Fam 3 | Eastern Algonquian |
| Lc 1 | xlo |
| Ld 1 | Loup A |
| Lc 2 | xlb |
| Ld 2 | Loup B |
| Glotto | loup1243 |
| Glottoname | Nipmuck |
| Glotto 2 | loup1245 |
| Glottoname 2 | Loup B |
| Script | transcribed with Latin script |
| Altname | Nipmuck |
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.[1] 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.[2] 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.[1]
Classification
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.[1]
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:[1]
- Nipmuck (Loup 1)
- Norwottuck (Loup 2)
- Pocumtuck (Loup 3 and 4)
- Woronoco (Loup 5)
- Pojassick (Loup 6)
Phonology
The phonology of Loup A (Nipmuck),[1] 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 | |||||
| Front | Back | |
|---|---|---|
| Close | i, iː | u |
| Mid | e | o, oː |
| Open | a, aː, ã | |
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/.[2][3]
References
- ^ Goddard, Ives (2012). "The 'Loup' Languages of Western Massachusetts: The Dialectal Diversity of Southern New England Algonquian". Papers of the 44th Algonquian Conference. 44: 104–138. SUNY Press.
- ^ Gustafson, Holly Suzanne (2000). A Grammar of the Nipmuck Language. Deparament of Linguistics, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba. Archived from the original on April 13, 2017.
- ^ Costa, David J. (2007). The Dialectology of Southern New England Algonquian. Archived from the original on 25 August 2018.