The Abenaki language was originally spoken across northern New England (Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine) and in Quebec south of the St Lawrence river. There are two versions of the language still spoken, Eastern Abenaki or Penobscot, and Western Abenaki.
Each of the two dialects has its own orthographic history. Western Abenaki has been written in the Latin alphabet since at least the 17th century. The current writing systems are based on those developed by the Abenaki writers/teachers: Pial Pol Wzo̱kihlain, Sozap Lolô, and Henry Lorne Masta. The Western Abenaki Dictionary by Gordon Day uses an orthography based on these three writers, with some small variances, these will be noted below.
Note: There are several Roman Orthography conventions on this site that may require further explanation. On the charts below, there is lots of phonetic terminology that may not be familiar to everyone.
Demographics
According to Howe and Cook, there are 5 speakers of Western Abenaki in Canada, and 1 in the USA. The United States Census reports that there are 47 speakers of Penobscot, although this number seems too high; it is reported (for example, in this article) that the last native speaker may have died in 1993.
Western Abenaki Consonants
| bilabial | alveolar | pal.-alveolar | velar | glottal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| lax stop | b |
d |
g |
||
| tense stop | p |
t |
k |
||
| lax affricate | j |
(J) |
|||
| tense affricate | c/ch |
(C) |
|||
| lax fricative | z |
h |
|||
| tense fricative | s |
||||
| nasal | m |
n |
|||
| approximate | w/u |
l |
y/i |
Western Abenaki Vowels
| Front | central | back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| mid-high | i |
o |
|
| mid | e |
||
| mid-low (nasal) | ô/o̱/ȣ |
||
| low | a |
Notes
- The nasal /õ/ is written ‹o̱› by Wzo̱kihlain, ‹ȣ› by Masta, and ‹ȏ› or ‹ô› by Day and Lolô.
- The schwa /e/ is consistantly written where heard in Day’s dictionary, but is often omitted when unstressed by other writers.
- Day writes ‹c› where the others usually write ‹ch›. Using ‹c› instead of ‹ch› has the advantage of not being confused with the ‹c› sound followed by a separate ‹h›. This is not, however, a serious problem because /c/ + /h/ could also be written ‹chh›. Note that ‹c›/‹ch› is pronounced like [ts] as in “cats”, and ‹j› is [dz] as in “adze”, not with their English or French values.
- Day includes two extra phonemes (sounds) ‹C› and ‹J› for [tʃ] as in “check” and [dʒ] as in “jump”. These sounds are typically found in borrowed words – usually from English. Day’s orthography uses capital ‹C› and ‹J› (“ch” and “j”) to distinguish them from ‹c› and ‹j› (“ts” and “dz”). This is an unfortunate choice, because the first letter of sentences or proper nouns is always capitalized. Perhaps a better choice would be to mark the much rarer “ch” and “j” sounds in some other way. As the Abenaki keyboard already has the circumflex accent ^, why not use that? Mixed-case orthographies can also cause certain problems on computers.
- /Cimak/ [tsimαk] “Mark” ~ ‹Cimak›
- /Caliz/ [tʃαliz] “Cherries” ~ ‹Ĉaliz›
- Lolô and Masta both use ‹u› and ‹w› somewhat interchangeably.
- Lolô uses ‹ i › for the /y/ sound, and ‹ ï › for the vowel /i/ where it would be confused with consonantal-y.
- Day always writes lax consonants with ‹b d g j z›. The other writers usually use the tense consonant symbols ‹p t k ch s› for lax consonants at the edge of words.
