Powhatan language

Indigenous language of Tidewater Virginia

Powhatan or Virginia Algonquian was an Eastern Algonquian subgroup of the Algonquian languages. It was formerly spoken by the Powhatan people of tidewater Virginia. Following 1970s linguistic research by Frank Thomas Siebert, Jr., some of the language has been reconstructed with assistance from better documented Algonquian languages, and attempts are being made to revive it. The sole documentary evidence for this language is two short wordlists recorded around the time of first European contact. William Strachey recorded about 500 words and Captain John Smith recorded only about 50 words. Smith also reported the existence of a pidgin form of Powhatan, but virtually nothing is known of it. 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 in his lifetime, although he made a second copy in 1618. The second copy was published in 1849, and the first in 1955. 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. Like many Algonquian languages, Powhatan did not have a writing system, so all that is left are the writings from the 17th century and the piecing together that can be done using related Algonquian languages. Although the language has become extinct, some of the tribes that were part of the Powhatan Chiefdom still remain close to their lands. These tribes include Upper Mattaponi, Mattaponi, Nansemond, Chickahominy, Pamunkey and Patawomeck, all of whom are either recognized by the Commonwealth of Virginia or the federal government. There is also the Powhatan Renape Nation (formerly located on the Rankokus Indian Reservation in Burlington, New Jersey) that is working to reclaim their culture and educate the public.

Powhatan is an Algic language. It is closely related to Unami, Munsee, Nanticoke, Massachusett, and other Eastern Algonquian languages, is more distantly related to Ojibwe, Cree, Cheyenne, Blackfoot, and other Algonquian languages, and is most distantly related to Wiyot and Yurok.

Based on his work to reconstruct Powhatan, Siebert was able to compare the changes that the language might have made compared to Proto Algonquian and Proto Eastern Algonquian. Here are three of the most basic changes his research pinpointed:

All syllabic phonemes are the same in between Proto Eastern Algonquian and Powhatan and the only change between those two and Proto Algonquian is that word initial became an in Powhatan and Proto Eastern Algonquian. Ex: PA "it is high" → aspēw Word final vowels are deleted if they are preceded by a consonant between Proto Algonquian and Powhatan. Ex: PA "earthwork" → mēnesk Powhatan drops the difference between and that is found in Proto Algonquian. Similarly, PA becomes a in Powhatan, unless it in a word final position of a particle or inflectional morphemes, where it is deleted. Furthermore PA becomes a Ex: PA "duck" → siyssiyp ; PA "sand" → rēkaw ; PA "little dog" → atemoss .

The Powhatan language formed from a split from other Eastern Algonquian languages, and southward moving groups replaced earlier cultures in the area as the language became more distinct. There is no certainty as to whether or not Carolina Algonquian was a distinct language from Powhatan, as ultimately Carolina Algonquian groups such as the Chowanoke, Croatan, and Machapunga are ethnically branches of the Powhatan groups of Virginia. Powhatan was likely the dominant language of what is now eastern Virginia, and was used in the Powhatan Chiefdom.

The first Europeans to encounter the Powhatan were the Spanish. They gave this region the name Ajacán, and they may have sailed up the Potomac River; however, Spanish colonization ultimately failed in this area. English colonists arrived in 1607 with Captain John Smith, and established the settlement of Jamestown. Smith recorded only about 50 words in Powhatan, but William Strachey, a writer and fellow colonist, managed to record about 500 words. Because at this time Powhatan was still the dominant language, and because during the early years the English colonists were dependent on the Powhatan for food, the colonists had to learn the newly encountered language. The English language started borrowing many words from Powhatan; the language has been credited with being the source of more English loans than any other indigenous language. Most such words were likely borrowed very early, probably before conflict arose between the Powhatan and the colonists in 1622. Among these words are: chinquapin (Castanea pumila), chum (as in chumming), hickory, hominy, matchcoat, moccasin, muskrat, opossum, persimmon, pokeweed, pone (as in corn pone), raccoon, terrapin, tomahawk, and wicopy. As English colonists continued to expand onto Powhatan territory, the reverse began to happen: Powhatan people now had to learn English. In his Notes on the State of Virginia (1782), Thomas Jefferson mentioned there being some 12 pure blooded Pamunkey, of which "the older ones preserve their language in a small degree, which are the last vestiges of the Powhatan language". It had likely vanished by 1790.

In recent decades there has been an interest in reviving the lost language, especially by the descendants of the Powhatan Confederacy. In 1975, Frank Siebert, a linguist specializing in Algonquian languages, published a book length study claiming the "reconstitution" of the phonology of the language. For the film The New World (2005), which tells the story of the English colonization of Virginia and encounter with the Powhatan, Blair Rudes made a tentative reconstruction of the language "as it might have been." A specialist in the Indigenous languages of North Carolina and Virginia, he used the Strachey and Smith wordlists, as well as the vocabularies and grammars of other Algonquian languages and the sound correspondences that appear to obtain between them and Powhatan. More specifically, he used a Bible translated into Massachusett to piece together grammar and Proto Algonquian to compare the words in Smith and Strachey's records. Linguists with the College of William and Mary are working with the Patawomeck tribe to recover the language and have made strides in doing so. The Patawomeck tribe offers classes in Stafford, Virginia, on the language.

Siebert does not specifically go over the structure of syllables, but using the lexicon and examples that he does provide, (C)V(ː)(C) pattern can be determined. Clusters within words are limited to two consonants, CVCCVC.

The Powhatan language uses syncope to determine the stressed syllable in words, more specifically the syncopation of weak vowels, and Syllable weight is determined based on whether or not the first syllable contains a weak vowel. If it does, then even numbered syllables are heavy and odd numbered syllables are light. For example, , which means "sun", would be pronounced If the word starts with a strong vowel, then it is the opposite, with the even numbered syllables being light and the odd numbered syllables being heavy. For example, , which means "good", would be pronounced
There are two kinds of syncope: major and minor. Major syncopation happens in morphemes that are three or more syllables in the middle of the word. This especially happens in light syllables ending in or Some examples of this are in the words for "spoon" and "broom". The word for "spoon" would be pronounced , but with major syncopation, it is pronounced The word for "broom" would be pronounced , but with the syncopation, it becomes Note that the last example is a prime example of the light syllable that ends in being syncopated. Minor syncopation tends to be optionally and only seen is specific dialects. Syllable weight is not a factor and instead it depends on if the word begins with or or ends with an or a cluster including such as An example of this is in the word for "five", which would be pronounced and is instead pronounced as or .

There are three types of verb affixes of the Powhatan language, all of which are inflective. Powhatan is a language that follows an agglutinative pattern. Although it might have lost some of its strict rules, there is a clear pattern where the indication of person is mainly consistent regardless of the type or class of verbs.

This class of verb is used to express actions done to other people and things. Notice the hierarchy that occurs, especially in the first singular form with a second singular object. When referring to an I–to–you relationship, like kowamānes "I love you", a variant of the second person prefix, ko , is used instead of the first person ne prefix even though "I" is the subject. + Person relationship Affix 1st sing. – 3rd sing ne āwnemerāmāw"I smell him" 2nd sing – 3rd sing ke āwkemownasāw"You cut his hair" 1st sing – 2nd sing ko eskowamānes"I love you" Negative 1st sing – 2nd sing ke erow