Loup is an extinct Algonquian language, or possibly group of languages, spoken in colonial

New England New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...

. ''Loup'' ("Wolf") was a French colonial ethnographic term, and usage was inconsistent. In modern literature, it refers to two varieties, Loup A and Loup B.

Attestation

Loup A, which may be the language of the

Nipmuck The Nipmuc or Nipmuck people are an Indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands, who historically spoke an Eastern Algonquian language. Their historic territory Nippenet, "the freshwater pond place," is in central Massachusetts and nearby part ...

, is principally attested from a word list recorded from refugees by the St. Francis mission to the

Abenaki The Abenaki (Abenaki: ''Wαpánahki'') are an Indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands of Canada and the United States. They are an Algonquian-speaking people and part of the Wabanaki Confederacy. The Eastern Abenaki language was predom ...

Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...

. The descendants of these refugees became speakers of Western Abenaki in the eighteenth century. Loup B refers to a second word list, which shows extensive dialectal variation. This may not be a distinct language, but just notes on the speech of various New England Algonquian refugees in French missions. Chaubunagungamaug lake sign

Phonology

The phonology of Loup A (Nipmuck), reconstructed by Gustafson 2000: The vowel sounds likely have the same phonetic quality as other southern New England Algonquian languages. The short vowels /i o e a/ may represent the sounds as � � �,ə and � while the long vowels /iː/, /oː/, and /ã/ correspond to /i/, /o/, and /ã/.

References

External links

OLAC resources in and about the Loup A languageOLAC resources in and about the Loup B languageNipmuc Language.org
{{Algonquian languages Eastern Algonquian languages Indigenous languages of the North American eastern woodlands Languages of the United States Extinct languages of North America Native American history of New York (state) Indigenous languages of North America Languages extinct in the 18th century Nipmuc