The Lord’s Prayer in Munsee:
Nooxwhna eepiian awasahkameew
weexwulundasuwuch ktushiinzuwaakan
kihkayuwaakan peeyeeweekuch
leekuch eeliteehiian yoon tali ahkiing eelkihkwi leek tali awasahkameew
Miiliineen kway kiishkwihk wetapwaanumayeeng
waak miiweelundamuwiineen njanuwsoowaakaninanal
eelkih niiloona miiweelundamaweeng niik chechaniilaweemkweemgwiik
Waak chiil apawuneen li ahkwchihtoowaakanung
shukwund ktuniineen wunji meetihkung
Amen
Munsee, also called Munsee Delaware or Lunaape, was the main language of what is now metropolitan New York back in 1600. It is one of the two native languages spoken by the Delaware (Lenape) people, the other being Unami, which was spoken to the south.
In 2009:
- Speakers: 6 native speakers (all of them over 70).
- Countries: Canada (Moraviantown Reserve, Ontario).
- Script: Roman. Scholars use the International Phonetic Alphabet.
- Language family: Eastern Algonquian, whose languages were spoken all along the east coast of North America from Nova Scotia to North Carolina.
It is no accident that they are now in Canada: they fled there from George Washington‘s genocidal war of terror, which featured the Gnadhutton Massacre.
William Penn, who heard the closely related language of Unami, said:
“I know not a Language spoken in Europe, that hath words of more sweetness and greatness, in Accent and Emphasis, than theirs.”
Like Ancient Greek, its word order is free-form, but it has tons of word endings and word beginnings, some of them depending on whether the thing talked about is inanimate or not. For example, red is maxksuw if the object is living, maxkeew if it is not.
It has vowels that English does not have, and yet has no f or r (except sometimes in borrowed words).
Some words borrowed from Dutch:
- hé·mpət – shirt (Dutch: hemd)
- á·pə̆ləš – apple (Dutch: appel)
- kə̆nó·p – button (Dutch: knop)
- šə̆mə́t – blacksmith (Dutch: smid)
- pó·təl – butter (Dutch: boter)
- šó·kəl – sugar (Dutch: suiker)
Near beer: English words from Eastern Algonquian languages that are like those in Munsee:
- moccasin – from Powhatan makasin, “shoe” (Munsee: mahkusin)
- moose – from Narragansett moos (Munsee: móos)
- terrapin – from Powhatan (Munsee: tolpew, “turtle”)
Place names: There are tons of them in metro New York. Here are a few:
- Hackensack – “the stream which discharges into itself on low ground”
- Jamaica, Queens – yameko, “beaver”
- Manhattan – munahan “island”, or maybe e:nta menahahte:nk, “where one gathers [wood for] bows”
- Massapequa – from siipuw, “creek”
- Mosquito Cove – muskeg, “swamp”. A bilingual pun.
- Paramus – paramp seapus, “plum creek”
- Parsippany – parsipanong, “the place where the river winds through the valley”.
- Passaic – pahsayèk, “valley” or “place where the land splits”
- Pequannock – pequa, “stream”
- Poconos – poco-hanne, “stream between mountains”
- Ramapo – “underneath the rock”
- Rockaway – leekuwii ahkiing, “at a sandy land”
- Secaucus – “black snakes”
- Tuxedo Park – p’tuck-sepo, “crooked river” – where tuxedos caught on.
- Watchung – wachtsu + ahkiing, “mountain” + “place”
- Weehawken – “place of gulls”
- Whippany – whippanong, “place of the willows”
- Wyoming – chwewamink, “at the big river flat”, made popular by the poem “Gertrude of Wyoming'” (1809) by Thomas Campbell.
Whites all but wiped out the Munsee language by genocide and boarding schools. Since the 1970s there has been a push to revive it.
Fighting internalized racism: Velma Noah (pictured), who teaches Munsee, says that without the Munsee language, the Munsee people will continue to suffer from things like drug addiction and high rates of high school dropouts:
“It’s not the social workers that’ll help, it’s the language. If you know your language, you know who you are.”
– Abagond, 2016, 2017.
See also:
- external links
- Lenape Talking Dictionary – over 17,000 words + some lessons
- Lunaapeew language – website from Moraviantown, where the last native speakers are
- The Delaware
- growing up Native American
- Notes towards a Native history of George Washington
- internalized racism
- Wolof
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Dear Abagond,
Why haven’t you mentioned the physical description or posted any pictures the Munsee/Lenape people?
Almost this entire month, I’ve visited your blog and have noticed that you’ve deemed the month of December as the month of Native Americans. But yet, I haven’t seen one TRUE Native American. Why not Abagond? The real Native Americans were and still are, ranging from copper, dark brown and almost black in skin color. Not white or of a Grecian skin tone. I shouldn’t have to remind you that we as dark skinned people have the technological power (the internet), within our hands to shatter the long-held, false conception that Native Americans were white in skin tone and just a small percentage of mulattos. This just isn’t so.
It isn’t hard to figure out that the original peoples of Americas would be considered Black, by not only today’s standard, but they were deemed so by even by the so-called explorers, colonialists and even sword swinging Christopher Columbus, a terrorist, who had an unquenchable penchant for 9 and 10 year old girls.
Please, stop clinging to the Hollywood’s Tonto version of what TRUE Native Americans looked like. They certainly didn’t have Florentine type nose, small buttocks, stringy hair, nor did they have blue or green eyes. To say or even passively suggest that TRUE Native Americans were anything other than wavy or nappy hair people is to wrongfully feed this beastly system’s carnivorous appetite to Black people’s detriment and a continuum of false narratives.
The Munsee/Lenape people were Black and still are today. Just as the Cherokee, Seminole, Ramapough, Paw Paw and Choctaw, just to name a few.
The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), says in part: Article 7
1. Indigenous individuals have the rights to life, physical and mental integrity, liberty and security of person. 2. Indigenous peoples have the collective right to live in freedom, peace and security as distinct peoples and shall not be subjected to any act of genocide or any other act of violence, including forcibly removing children of the group to another group.
The declaration was adopted by the General Assembly on Thursday, 13 September 2007, by a majority of 144 states in favor, with 4 votes against: those against were Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States: all of which had institutionally committed those very crimes against Indigenous Peoples since the arrival of the Albino people.
An Italian explorer, Giovanni da Verrazzano, wrote a description in 1524 of the “Carolina Indians” he encountered. He wrote, “The complexion of the Carolina Indians is black, not much different from that of the Ethiopians. Their hair is black and thick, and not very long, tied back behind the head like a small tail. As for the physique of these men, they are well proportioned, of medium height, a little taller than we are. They have broad chests, strong arms, and the legs and other parts of the body are well-composed. They’re broad in the face and have big black eyes. They have a sharp cunning and are agile and swift runners.”
Native Americans were reclassified as Colored (Racial Integrity Act 1924). Jim Crow Laws were a set of oppressive laws not only used for segregation but also reclassified Native American Indians into the category of Colored.
Read a book by Dr. David Imhotep, an ancient African historian, called “The First Americans Were Africans – Documented Evidence.” Hear our interview with Dr. Imhotep on Human Rights Demand channel at Blogtalkradio at a link above the signature line for this article. The historian discussed African artifacts found in South America that dated to over 56,000 years ago. He revealed during an interview with the African History Network that mainstream media companies flew him to their headquarters for lengthy interviews when his book was published but did not air the interviews. The embedded African History Network interview below is also at YouTube video (http://youtu.be/pE8LJzoupFM)
There is so much more that I could post regarding this subject, but I just do not have the time to do so!
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Reblogged this on League of Bloggers For a Better World.
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“There is so much more that I could post regarding this subject, but I just do not have the time to do so!”
Fortunately for the less aware others have found the time to do so.
http://stewartsynopsis.com/Native%20Americans%20Black%20in%20Color.htm
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@ blakksage
I did make an effort to show images of present-day Native people, in part because Western culture tends to freeze them in the past. But I did not consciously choose images by how they looked racially. They are what they are. Some “look” Native, some do not. That is because in the US they have been mixing with Whites and therefore look Whiter on average than they did 500 years ago. The same is true of Blacks.
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@ blakksage
From what I know, before Columbus people came to the Americas in four main waves. The first and oldest looked like Australian aborigines. The last wave was made up of Inuits or Eskimos. In between was a wave of round-faced people with light brown skin and then one with “red” skin and hooked noses. Each wave presumably looked like the Asians of their time, each wave less Black looking than the one before.
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one time? in i think 3rd grade? we had a lesson on the lenni lenape and there was some local lore sprinkled through out the boy scout summer camp locations etc.ps i’m from central nj
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right by piscataway!
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@Abagond and all: Do you remember the Big Chief writing tablets from childhood. I loved those? I wonder what Native Americans thought of the product? Is this exploitation of the image of Native Americans?
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“But I did not consciously choose images by how they looked racially. They are what they are.” – Abagond
Really! I could easily disassemble this quote even further, but I won’t because it will take everyone on a detour away from the current post in order to further explain. Also, here is one of my links that you either intentionally or mistakenly forgot to post. Have a great day!
http://www.baruch.cuny.edu/library/alumni/online_exhibits/digital/native/native_thumbs.htm
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