Difference between revisions of "User:Fverdon1/Language selection"

Revision as of 16:29, 21 January 2023

I am planning on working with Henry Nguyen on a language yet to be decided.

Possible Languages

• Swampy Cree

-ISO 639-3 csw

• Western Abenaki

-ISO 639-3 abe

• West Frisian

-ISO 639-3 fry

Swampy Cree

Swampy Cree is an Amerindian language spoken in small communities throughout northern Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Ontario along the Hudson bay. There are approximately 2,500 speakers according to Ethnologue, with a Threatened status. Most speakers also speak English.

Swampy Cree is a member of the 'West Cree' dialect group, and is known as the n-dialect due to its use of the n phoneme in place of other variable phonemes indicative of other dialects. It is a polysynthetic language with plenty of inflectional morphology. It distinguishes grammatical gender on the basis of animacy. It seems to not employ adjectives and uses verbs instead, as in "he strongs" in place of "he is strong."

The language is written in Cree Syllabics, a writing system developed by James Evans, a missionary, in the 1830s. However, the language can also has a second orthography using the Latin alphabet. There seems to be a good amount of text out there using both orthographies, although most of it is Biblical in nature.

Sources

Ethnologue, Swampy Cree, Cree Syllabics

Western Abenaki

Western Abenaki is another Amerindian language spoken in northern New England and the surrounding area in Canada. It is part of the Algonquian language family. There are only 10-15 active speakers, but a fairly robust collection of scholarship regarding the language and people attempting to revitalize it. Presumably, due to its low speaking population, all speakers also speak English or French (if in Quebec).

Western Abenaki is a polysynthetic language with free word order. It has a highly complex inflectional system which has lead many philologists to call Western Abenaki (along with other Amerindian languages) "languages of verbs." This languages makes a similar distinction to Swampy Cree in terms of noun class, diving along animate/inanimate boundaries.

The language is written using the Latin script with the notable addition of the 8 symbol to represent an open-mid nasalized back vowel: /ɔ̃/. There seems to be a good collection of resources and texts written in and about this language. Many text samples seem to be in the form of transcribed stories.

Sources

Ethnologue, Abenaki language, Western Abenaki wesbite, Western Abenaki pronounciation guide,,,