Quiripi (pronounced , also known as Mattabesic, Quiripi-Unquachog, Quiripi-Naugatuck, and Wampano) was an
Algonquian language formerly spoken by the indigenous people of
southwestern Connecticut and central
Long Island,
[Rudes (1997:1)][Goddard (1978:72)] including the
Quinnipiac
Quinnipiac is the English name for the Eansketambawg (meaning "original people"; ''cf.'' Ojibwe: '' Anishinaabeg'' and Blackfoot: ''NiitsΓtapi''), a Quiripi-speaking Native American nation of the Algonquian family who inhabited the ''Wamp ...
,
Unquachog,
Mattabessett,
Podunk
The terms ''podunk'' and ''Podunk Hollow'' in American English denote or describe an insignificant, out-of-the-way, or even completely fictitious town.Nick Bacon. "Podunk After Pratt: Place and Placelessness in East Hartford, CT." In ''Confrontin ...
,
Tunxis
The Tunxis were a group of Quiripi speaking Connecticut Native Americans that is known to history mainly through their interactions with English settlers in New England. Broadly speaking, their location makes them one of the Eastern Algonquian ...
, and
Paugussett
The Golden Hill Paugussett is a state-recognized Native American tribe in Connecticut. Granted reservations in a number of towns in the 17th century, their land base was whittled away until they were forced to reacquire a small amount of territory ...
(subgroups Naugatuck,
Potatuck,
Weantinock). It has been effectively
extinct since the end of the 19th century, although
Frank T. Siebert, Jr., was able to record a few Unquachog words from an elderly woman in 1932.
[Rudes (1997:5)]
Affiliation and dialects
Quiripi is considered to have been a member of the
Eastern Algonquian branch of the Algonquian language family. It shared a number of linguistic features with the other Algonquian languages of southern New England, such as
Massachusett and
Mohegan-Pequot, including the shifting of Proto-Eastern Algonquian * and * to and , respectively, and the
palatalization of earlier * before certain
front vowels.
[Rudes (1997:27)] There appear to have been two major dialects of Quiripi: an "insular" dialect spoken on Long Island by the Unquachog and a "mainland" dialect spoken by the other groups in Connecticut, principally the Quinnipiac.
Attestation
Quiripi is very poorly attested, though some sources do exist. One of the earliest Quiripi vocabularies was a 67-page bilingual
catechism compiled in 1658 by
Abraham Pierson, the elder
Abraham Pierson, the elder (1611β1678) was an English Nonconformist clergyman, known as a Congregational minister in New England. He reportedly came to the American colonies in 1639 to escape persecution for his Puritan views. Later, he and ot ...
, during his ministry at
Branford, Connecticut
Branford is a shoreline town located on Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut, about east of downtown New Haven. The population was 28,273 at the 2020 census.
Geography
According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a to ...
,
which remains the chief source of modern conclusions about Quiripi.
Unfortunately, the catechism was "poorly translated" by Pierson,
containing an "unidiomatic, non-Algonquian sentence structure." It also displays signs of dialect mixture. Other sources of information on the language include a vocabulary collected by the Rev.
Ezra Stiles in the late 1700s and a 202-word Unquachog vocabulary recorded by
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 β July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, architect, philosopher, and Founding Father who served as the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. He was previously the natio ...
in 1791,
though the Jefferson vocabulary also shows clear signs of dialect mixture and "external influences." Additionally, three early hymns written circa 1740 at the
Moravian Shekomeko mission near
Kent, Connecticut, have been translated by Carl Masthay.
Phonology
Linguist
Blair Rudes
Blair Arnold Rudes (May 18, 1951 β March 16, 2008) was an American linguist and professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte best known for his expertise in Native American languages. He was hired in 2004 to reconstruct the long e ...
attempted to reconstitute the phonology of Quiripi, using the extant documentation, comparison with related Algonquian languages, as "reconstructing forward" from
Proto-Algonquian
Proto-Algonquian (commonly abbreviated PA) is the proto-language from which the various Algonquian languages are descended. It is generally estimated to have been spoken around 2,500 to 3,000 years ago, but there is less agreement on where it was ...
. In Rudes' analysis, Quiripi contained the following consonant
phoneme
In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language.
For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-wes ...
s:
[Rudes (2007:18)]
Quiripi's vowel system as reconstituted by Rudes was similar to that of the other Southern New England Algonquian languages. It consisted of two short vowels and , and four long vowels , , , and .
Orthography
* a -
* Γ’ -
Λ* ch -
Ν‘Κ* h -
* i -
Λ* k -
* m -
* n -
* o -
Λ* Γ΄ -
Μ* p -
* r -
* s -
* sh -
* t -
* u -
* w -
* y -
re
Quiripi language, alphabet, and pronunciation Omniglot.
References
Bibliography
* (2007). "The Dialectology of Southern New England Algonquian." In ''Papers of the 38th Algonquian Conference'', ed. H. C. Wolfart. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba, pp. 81β127
* (1978). "Eastern Algonquian Languages." In ''Northeast'', ed. Bruce G. Trigger. Vol. 15 of ''Handbook of North American Indians'', ed. William C. Sturtevant. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, pp. 70β77
* (1999). ''The Languages of Native North America''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
* (1980). ''Some Helps for the Indians 1658 Bilingual Catechism'', reprinted in "Language and Lore of the Long Island Indians," ''Readings in Long Island Archaeology and Ethnohistory'', Vol. IV. Stony Brook, NY: Suffolk County Archaeological Association.
* (1997). "Resurrecting Wampano (Quiripi) from the Dead: Phonological Preliminaries." ''Anthropological Linguistics'' (39)1:1-59
* (1978). "Indians of Southern New England and Long Island: Early Period." In ''Northeast'', ed. Bruce G. Trigger. Vol. 15 of ''Handbook of North American Indians'', ed. William C. Sturtevant. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, pp. 160β176
External links
OLAC resources in and about the Quiripi language
{{Algonquian languages
Eastern Algonquian languages
Languages of the United States
Extinct languages of North America
Indigenous languages of the North American eastern woodlands
Languages extinct in the 1900s