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 (state), New York to the west and by the Can ...

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

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