Carolina Algonquian (also known as Pamlico, Croatoan) was an Algonquian language of the Eastern Algonquian subgroup formerly spoken in North Carolina, United States. Carolina Algonquian was formerly spoken by

Secotan The Secotans were one of several groups of American Indians dominant in the Carolina sound region, between 1584 and 1590, with which English colonists had varying degrees of contact. Secotan villages included the Secotan, Aquascogoc, Dasamonguep ...

(later known as

Machapunga The Machapunga are a small Algonquian language-speaking Native American tribe from coastal northeastern North Carolina. They were part of the Secotan people. They were a group from the Powhatan Confederacy who migrated from present-day Virgini ...

Chowanoke The Chowanoke, also spelled Chowanoc, are an Algonquian-language Native American tribe who historically inhabited the coastal area of the Upper South of the United States. At the time of the first English contacts in 1585 and 1586, they were th ...

and

Weapemeoc The Weapemeoc Indians were a small Native American tribe from northeastern North Carolina. They lived on the north shore of Albemarle Sound. that was first noted in literature in 1585/1586. At that time, they approximately had 700 to 800 people. T ...

(subgroups Poteskeit and Paspatank) peoples.

Translation into English

In 1584 Sir Walter Raleigh had dispatched the first of a number of expeditions to Roanoke Island to explore and eventually settle the New World. Early encounters with the natives were friendly, and, despite the difficulties in communication, the explorers were able to persuade "two of the savages, being lustie men, whose names were Wanchese and Manteo" to accompany them on the return voyage to London, in order for the English people to report both the conditions of the

New World The term ''New World'' is often used to mean the majority of Earth's Western Hemisphere, specifically the Americas."America." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (). McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: Oxford University Press, p. ...

that they had explored and what the usefulness of the territory might be to the English Once safely delivered to England, the two Indians quickly made a sensation at court. Raleigh's priority however was not publicity but rather intelligence about his new land of Virginia, and he restricted access to the exotic newcomers, assigning the brilliant scientist Thomas Harriot with the job of deciphering and learning the Carolina Algonquian language, using a phonetic alphabet of his own invention in order to effect the translation.

Related languages

Carolina Algonquian forms a part of the same language group as

Powhatan The Powhatan people (; also spelled Powatan) may refer to any of the indigenous Algonquian people that are traditionally from eastern Virginia. All of the Powhatan groups descend from the Powhatan Confederacy. In some instances, The Powhatan ...

or ''Virginia Algonquian'', a similarly

extinct language An extinct language is a language that no longer has any speakers, especially if the language has no living descendants. In contrast, a dead language is one that is no longer the native language of any community, even if it is still in use, l ...

of the Eastern Algonquian subgroup of the Algonquian language family, itself a member of the Algic language family. Powhatan was spoken by the

people of

tidewater Virginia Tidewater refers to the north Atlantic coastal plain region of the United States of America. Definition Culturally, the Tidewater region usually includes the low-lying plains of southeast Virginia, northeastern North Carolina, southern Maryl ...

until the late 18th century, dying out in the 1790s after speakers switched to English. What little is known of Powhatan is by way of wordlists recorded by

William Strachey William Strachey (4 April 1572 – buried 21 June 1621) was an English writer whose works are among the primary sources for the early history of the English colonisation of North America. He is best remembered today as the eye-witness reporter o ...

(about 500 words) and

Captain John Smith John Smith (baptized 6 January 1580 – 21 June 1631) was an English soldier, explorer, colonial governor, Admiral of New England, and author. He played an important role in the establishment of the colony at Jamestown, Virginia, the first pe ...

(about 50 words). Smith also reported a pidgin form of Powhatan, but almost nothing is known of it.Campbell, Lyle, 2000, p. 20 Smith's material was collected between 1607 and 1609, and published in 1612 and again in 1624. There is no indication of the location where he collected his material. Strachey's material was collected sometime between 1610 and 1611, and probably written up from his notes in 1612 and 1613, after he had returned to England. It was never published, and remained in manuscript form, although Strachey made a second copy in 1618. The second copy was published in 1849, and the first in 1955.Siebert, Frank, 1975, p. 291

Legacy

The Carolina Algonquian language is now extinct, and the communities in which it flourished are gone. However, a number of Algonquian loan words have survived by being absorbed into the English language. Among them are:

moccasin A moccasin is a shoe, made of deerskin or other soft leather, consisting of a sole (made with leather that has not been "worked") and sides made of one piece of leather, stitched together at the top, and sometimes with a vamp (additional panel o ...

moose The moose (in North America) or elk (in Eurasia) (''Alces alces'') is a member of the New World deer subfamily and is the only species in the genus ''Alces''. It is the largest and heaviest extant species in the deer family. Most adult ma ...

, opossum,

papoose Papoose (from the Algonquian ''papoose'', meaning "child") is an American English word whose present meaning is "a Native American child" (regardless of tribe) or, even more generally, any child, usually used as a term of endearment, often in t ...

, pecan,

raccoon The raccoon ( or , ''Procyon lotor''), sometimes called the common raccoon to distinguish it from other species, is a mammal native to North America. It is the largest of the procyonid family, having a body length of , and a body weight of ...

, skunk,

squash Squash may refer to: Sports * Squash (sport), the high-speed racquet sport also known as squash racquets * Squash (professional wrestling), an extremely one-sided match in professional wrestling * Squash tennis, a game similar to squash but pla ...

squaw The English word ''squaw'' is an ethnic and sexual slur, historically used for Indigenous North American women. Contemporary use of the term, especially by non-Natives, is considered derogatory, misogynist, and racist.King, C. Richard,De/Sc ...

, and

wigwam A wigwam, wickiup, wetu (Wampanoag), or wiigiwaam (Ojibwe, in syllabics: ) is a semi-permanent domed dwelling formerly used by certain Native American tribes and First Nations people and still used for ceremonial events. The term ''wickiup' ...

Notes

References

* * Feest, Christian. 1978. "Virginia Algonquin." Bruce Trigger, ed., ''Handbook of North American Indians. Volume 15. Northeast,'' pp. 253–271. Washington: Smithsonian Institution. * Lovgren, Stefan. 2006
"'New World' Film Revives Extinct Native American Tongue"
''

National Geographic News The National Geographic Society (NGS), headquartered in Washington, D.C., United States, is one of the largest non-profit scientific and educational organizations in the world. Founded in 1888, its interests include geography, archaeology, and ...

'', January 20, 2006. * Marianne Mithun. 1999. ''The Languages of Native North America''. Cambridge Language Family Surveys. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. * Frank Siebert. 1975. "Resurrecting Virginia Algonquian from the dead: The reconstituted and historical phonology of Powhatan," ''Studies in Southeastern Indian Languages''. Ed. James Crawford. Athens: University of Georgia Press. Pages 285-453. *Kupperman, Karen Ordahl. ''Indians and English: Facing Off in Early America''. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2000. *Mancall, Peter C. ''Hakluyt's Promise: An Elizabethan's Obsession for an English America''. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007. *Milton, Giles, ''Big Chief Elizabeth – How England's Adventurers Gambled and Won the New World'', Hodder & Stoughton, London (2000) *Vaughan, Alden T. "Sir Walter Raleigh's Indian Interpreters, 1584-1618." The William and Mary Quarterly 59.2 (2002): 341-376.

External links