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Western Abenaki language

Western Abenaki is a nearly extinct Algonquian language spoken by the Abenaki people in New Hampshire, Vermont, north-western Massachusetts, and southern Quebec. Odanak, Quebec is a First Nations reserve located near the Saint-François River—these peoples were referred to as Saint Francis Indians by English writers after the 1700s.

The few remaining speakers of Western Abenaki live predominantly in Odanak and the last fully fluent speaker, Cécile (Wawanolett) Joubert died in 2006. A revitalization effort was started in Odanak in 1994; however, as of 2004, younger generations are not learning the language and the remaining speakers are elderly, making Western Abenaki nearly extinct.

Phonology

Vowels

  • is a low back unrounded vowel; before in a final syllable it becomes close to in English 'gse'.
  • is a mid-central unrounded vowel; pronounced like in the English word 'labl'; occurs only in the middle of a word between consonants.
  • , pronounced like in the English word 'nd', occurs in only three words, where it is the initial segment–– 'which', 'who' and 'a spear'.
  • is a lower-high front vowel; normally pronounced between the English words 'pt' and 'pt', it varies between the high front tense vowel and the mid front lax vowel .
  • is a higher mid-back vowel pronounced like in the English word 'pke'; however, some speakers pronounce it like .
  • is a rounded nasalized vowel.

Historically, it was common for speakers to drop between vowels and to drop before the nasal vowel .

Consonants

Western Abenaki has 18 consonant sounds in total.

In Western Abenaki there is a distinction between fortis consonants (always voiceless and aspirated) represented as , and lenis consonants (voiced between resonants, voiceless in word-initial and word-final positions and before a fortis consonant, unaspirated but become aspirated when they close a strongly accented syllable, which includes all final syllables) represented as . The lenis consonants generally exist between vowels and at the end of words but rarely next to each other or at the beginning of words.

  • is a bilabial stop, tense, voiceless, unaspirated, and long in all positions; it is similar to the combined sounds of English ending a word and beginning the next, like in 'stoayment'.
  • is a lax bilabial stop; between it is voiced and pronounced like in the English word 'habit'; beginning a word it is voiceless and pronounced like a weak English but unaspirated; at the end of a word it is voiceless and made long by the stress assigned on the final syllable.
  • is a tense apico-alveolar stop that is always voiceless and long, longer than the English , similarly to the Western Abenaki .
  • is a lax apico-alveolar stop that is voiced between resonants and pronounced like in English word 'boy'; at the start of a word it is voiceless and pronounced like a weak English but unaspirated; at the end of a word is it voiceless and made long and tense by the stress assigned on the final syllable, pronounced like in English 'hi'.
  • is a tense, dorso-velar stop, long, voiceless and unaspirated in all positions and pronounced like in English word 'sore'.
  • is a lax velar stop; between resonants is it pronounced like in English 'ao'; beginning a word it is pronounced like a weak unaspirated ; at the end of a word it is voiceless and made long and tense by the stress assigned on the final syllable, pronounced like English in 'sore'.
  • is a tense apico-alveolar affricate that is voiceless in all positions and pronounced by most speakers like /ts/ in English 'hats'.
  • is an apico-alveolar affricate pronounced between resonants like the in English word 'ae'; at the start of a word it is pronounced like in the English word 'le'; at the end of a word it is pronounced like the in 'ha'.
  • It is important to note that historically Western Abenaki speakers varied in the ways they pronounced the alveolar affricate phonemes and . More than half of the population pronounced them as and respectively, while the rest pronounced them as and .
  • is a tense alveolar fricative that is always voiceless and long, much like the English in all positions.
  • is a lax alveolar fricative that is voiced, and between resonants is pronounced like English ; voiceless when it is at the beginning of a word, both voiceless and long when it is at the end of a word.
  • occurs only before a vowel or and is pronounced like in English word 'heel', 'hat', or 'hit'; lax consonants before it become voiceless; when is it between vowels it is usually dropped by speakers in most words.
  • is a bilabial nasal sonorant pronounced in all positions like English .
  • is an apico-alveolar sonorant pronounced in all positions like English .
  • is a lateral sonorant; it is pronounced with a lot of tongue tension and is influenced by the vowel which follows it, or, in syllable-final position, by the vowel that precedes it.
  • is a high front non-syllabic with a similar sound to