| Also Known As: Virginia Algonkian,Virginia Algonquian,Powhatan language
Description:
Powhatan or Virginia Algonquian is an extinct language of the Eastern Algonquian subgroup of the Algonquian language family, itself a member of the Algic language family. Powhatan was spoken by the Powhatan people of tidewater Virginia until the late 18th century, dying out in the 1790s after speakers switched to English.
What little is known of Powhatan is by way of wordlists recorded by William Strachey (about 500 words) and Captain John Smith (about 50 words). Smith also reported a pidgin form of Powhatan, but next to nothing is known of it.
Smith’s material was collected between 1607 and 1609, and published in 1612 and again in 1624. There is no indication of the location where he collected his material. Strachey’s material was collected sometime between 1610 and 1611, and probably written up from his notes in 1612 and 1613, after he had returned to England. It was never published, and remained in manuscript form, although Strachey made a second copy in 1618. The second copy was published in 1849, and the first in 1955.
Strachey’s material reflect considerable lexical variation and minor phonological variation, suggesting the existence of dialect differentiation. However, there..... full article at Wikipedia |
