Делавэр өзені маңындағы үндістердің тілдері

Native American languages centered around the Delaware River

The Delaware languages, also known as the Lenape languages , are Munsee and Unami, two closely related languages of the Eastern Algonquian subgroup of the Algonquian language family. Munsee and Unami were spoken aboriginally by the Lenape people in the vicinity of the modern New York City area in the United States, including western Long Island, Manhattan Island, Staten Island, as well as adjacent areas on the mainland: southeastern New York State, eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Connecticut, Maryland, and Delaware.

The Lenape language is part of the Algonquian branch of the Algic language family, and is part of the Eastern Algonquian language grouping which is considered to be a genetically related sub grouping of Algonquian. The languages of the Algonquian family constitute a group of historically related languages descended from a common source language, Proto Algonquian, which was descended from Algic. The Algonquian languages are spoken across Canada from the Rocky Mountains to the Atlantic coast; on the American Plains; south of the Great Lakes; and on the Atlantic coast. Many of the Algonquian languages are now sleeping. The Eastern Algonquian languages, spoken on the Atlantic coast from what are now called the Canadian Maritime provinces to what is now called North Carolina; many of the languages are now sleeping, and some are known only from very fragmentary records. Eastern Algonquian is considered a genetic subgroup within the Algonquian family, that is, the Eastern Algonquian languages share a sufficient number of common innovations to suggest that they descend from a common intermediate source, Proto Eastern Algonquian. The linguistic closeness of Munsee and Unami entails that they share an immediate common ancestor which may be called Common Delaware; the two languages have diverged in distinct ways from Common Delaware. Several shared phonological innovations support a genetic subgroup consisting of the Delaware languages and Mahican, sometimes referred to as Delawaran. The line of historical descent is therefore Proto Algonquian > Proto Eastern Algonquian > Delawarean > Common Delaware + Mahican, with Common Delaware splitting into Munsee and Unami.

Lenni Lenape means 'Human Beings' or the 'Real People' in the Unami language. Their autonym is also spelled Lennape or Lenapi, in Unami Lënape and in Munsee Lunaapeew meaning 'the people.' The term Delaware was used by the English, who named the people for their territory by the Delaware River. They named the river in honor of Lord De La Warr, the governor of the colony at Jamestown, Virginia. Other estimates for approximately 1600 AD suggest 6,500 Unami and 4,500 Munsee, with data lacking for Long Island Munsee. These groups were never united politically or linguistically, and the names Delaware, Munsee, and Unami postdate the period of consolidation of these local groups. At the time of first contact of Europeans colonizers in the 17th century, the Lenape resided in relatively small communities consisting of a few hundred people. The intensity of contact with European settlers resulted in the gradual displacement of some of the Lenape people from their aboriginal homeland, in a series of population movements of genocidal intent involving forced relocation and consolidation of small local groups, extending over a period of more than two hundred years. Until recently there were a small number of Unami speakers in Oklahoma; the language is now extinct there as a first language, but is spoken fluently as a learned language by enrolled members of the two Delaware tribes in Oklahoma. Some language revitalization work is underway by the Delaware Tribe of Indians. Equally affected by consolidation and dispersal, Munsee groups moved to several locations in southern Ontario as early as the late 18th century, to Moraviantown, Munceytown, and Six Nations. Several different patterns of migration led to groups of Munsee speakers moving to Stockbridge in present day Wisconsin, Cattaraugus in present day New York state, and Kansas. In 1892 the Munsee Delaware and Moraviantown children were sent to Mount Elgin Residential School where only English language was permitted to be spoken. The Lenape language began its disappearance along the Grand River in Six Nations and to rapidly vanish in Munsee Delaware Nation. Only in Moraviantown the Lenape language was used on a daily basis from a majority of the nation and help on the preservation of the language. Today Munsee survives only at Moraviantown, where there are two fluent first language speakers aged 77 and 90 as of 2018. There are no fluent speakers left in the Munsee Delaware nation of the Lenape people living in Canada; however, there are members that are working to revitalize the language within the community. The class focused on beginner phrases and grammar, but also included information about the history and culture of the Lenape people. Books used in the class included Conversations in Lenape Language and Advanced Supplements (both written by De Paul). Despite their relative closeness the two are sufficiently distinguished by features of syntax, phonology, and vocabulary that speakers of both consider them not mutually intelligible so that, more recently, linguists have treated them as separate languages. Munsee Delaware was spoken in the central and lower Hudson River Valley, western Long Island, the upper Delaware River Valley, and the northern third of New Jersey in present day North Jersey. While dialect variation in Munsee was likely there is no information about possible dialectal subgroupings. Unami Delaware was spoken in the area south of Munsee speakers in the Delaware River Valley and New Jersey, south of the Delaware Water Gap and the Raritan Valley. The Northern Unami groups were south of the Munsee groups, with the southern boundary of the Northern Unami area being at Tohickon Creek on the west bank of the Delaware River and between Burlington and Trenton on the east bank. The poorly known Unalachtigo dialect is described as having been spoken in the area between Northern and Southern Unami, with only a small amount of evidence from one group. Both Munsee and Unami speakers use Delaware if enrolled and Lenape if not enrolled as a self designation in English. The Unamis residing in Oklahoma are sometimes referred to as Oklahoma Delaware, while the Munsees in Ontario are sometimes referred to as Ontario Delaware or Canadian Delaware. Munsee speaking residents of Moraviantown use the English term Munsee to refer to residents of Munceytown, approximately to the east and refer to themselves in English as "Delaware", and in Munsee as 'Delaware person, Indian'. Oklahoma Delawares refer to Ontario Delaware as or , terms that are also used for people of Munsee ancestry in their own communities. Some Delawares at Moraviantown also use the term Christian Indian as a preferred self designation in English. The equivalent Munsee term is ké·ntə̆we·s, meaning "one who prays, Moravian convert". Munsee speakers refer to Oklahoma Delawares as Unami in English or in Munsee. The Oklahoma Delawares refer to themselves in English as Delaware and in Unami as
The name Lenape, which is sometimes used in English for both Delaware languages together, is the name Unami speakers also use for their own language in English, whereas Munsee speakers call their language in English Lunaapeew. Uniquely among scholars, Kraft uses Lenape as a cover term to refer to all Delaware speaking groups. Munsee speakers refer to their language as , meaning "speaking the Delaware language".

There is no standard writing system for either Munsee or Unami. However, the people who are enrolled in the Delaware Tribe of Indians have developed a spelling system that is the most recent standard for writing in the Unami dialect. Out of respect to this intellectual property of The Delaware Tribe of Indians their standard for writing in the Unami dialect should be used. As well, the Muncy at the Six Nations Reserve in what is now called Canada have done the same standardization for the Munsee dialect. In Aboriginal teaching materials used by provincial governments this newest standard for Munsee is used in order to teach Muncy to children in the school system. Linguists have tended to use common phonetic transcription symbols of the type found in the International Phonetic Alphabet or similar Americanist symbols in order to represent sounds that are not consistently represented in conventional standard writing systems. Europeans writing down Delaware words and sentences have tended to use adaptations of European alphabets and associated conventions. The quality of such renditions have varied widely, as Europeans attempted to record sounds and sound combinations they were not familiar with. Practical orthographies for both Munsee and Unami have been created in the context of various language preservation and documentation projects. A recent bilingual dictionary of Munsee uses a practical orthography derived from a linguistic transcription system for Munsee. The same system is also used in a recent word book produced locally at Moraviantown. The online Unami Lenape Talking Dictionary uses a practical system distinct from that for Munsee. However, other practically oriented Unami materials use a writing system with conventional phonetic symbols.