Nanticoke language

Nanticoke is an extinct Algonquian language spoken in Delaware and Maryland, United States.^[5] The same language was spoken by several neighboring tribes, including the Nanticoke, which constituted the paramount chiefdom; the Choptank, the Assateague, and probably also the Piscataway and the Doeg. The last native speaker died in 1856; in the 21st century, an effort has been made to revive the language.

• Allophones of /e,ə,i,o,oː/ are heard as [ɛ,ɨ,ɪ,ɔ,uː].
• /l/ may have an allophone of [r] in word-final positions.^[6]

Nanticoke is sometimes considered a dialect of the Delaware language, but its vocabulary was quite distinct. This is shown in a few brief glossaries, which are all that survive of the language. One is a 146-word list compiled by Moravian missionary John Heckewelder in 1785, from his interview with a Nanticoke chief then living in Canada.^[7] The other is a list of 300 words obtained in 1792 by William Vans Murray, then a US Representative (at the behest of Thomas Jefferson.) He compiled the list from a Nanticoke speaker in Dorchester County, Maryland, part of the historic homeland.^[8]

These words are some of the listings in Murray's glossary. In the letter that accompanied his glossary, Murray noted that the Nanticoke were "not more than nine in number," and also stated that "they have no word for the personals 'he' and 'she.'" The exclamation point (!) indicates a "peculiar, forcible, explosive, enunciation" of a syllable in this phoneticization.

With the assistance of a native speaker, Myrelene Ranville née Henderson of the Sagkeeng First Nation in Manitoba, Canada, who speaks a similar language, Anishinaabemowin, a group of Nanticoke people in Millsboro, Delaware, assembled to revive the language in 2007, using the vocabulary list of Thomas Jefferson. It had been "more than 150 years since the last conversation in Nanticoke took place."^[10] Similar efforts made by the Nanticoke Indian Association are also being taken through partnership with local linguists.^{[11] [12]} In 2023, a book for the revitalization of the Nanticoke language was published.^{[13] [14]}

• Piscataway language

• Vans Murray, William (2009). A Vocabulary of the Nanticoke Dialect. American Language Reprints. Evolution Pub & Manufacturing. ISBN 9780964423435 . Retrieved 2012年09月23日.

• Custom lexicon: The Interactive ALR – includes all known Nanticoke data
• Native Languages of the Americas: Nanticoke (Southern Delaware)
• Nanticoke Language [archive]
• OLAC resources in and about the Nanticoke language

• Nanticoke
• Eastern Algonquian languages
• Indigenous languages of the North American eastern woodlands
• Native American history of Delaware
• Native American history of Maryland
• Native American history of Virginia
• Native American language revitalization
• Extinct languages of North America
• Indigenous languages of Maryland
• Languages extinct in the 1840s

• CS1: long volume value
• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Language articles with Linglist code
• Extinct ISO language articles citing sources other than Ethnologue
• Pages with plain IPA
• Articles containing Nanticoke-language text