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25-581: Innu-aimun or Montagnais is an Algonquian language spoken by over 10,000 Innu in Labrador and Quebec in Eastern Canada . It is a member of the Cree –Montagnais– Naskapi dialect continuum and is spoken in various dialects depending on the community. Since the 1980s, Innu-aimun has had considerable exposure in the popular culture of Canada and France due to the success of the rock music band Kashtin and

50-449: A noun, that it must be a purely linguistic characterization. Anthropological linguists have conversely argued the strong connection between animacy and items viewed as having spiritual importance. Another important distinction involves the contrast between nouns marked as proximate and those marked as obviative . Proximate nouns are those deemed most central or important to the discourse, while obviative nouns are those less important to

75-459: A single word. Ex: ( Menominee ) paehtāwāēwesew "He is heard by higher powers" ( paeht - 'hear', - āwāē - 'spirit', - wese - passivizer, - w third-person subject) or ( Plains Cree ) kāstāhikoyahk "it frightens us". These languages have been extensively studied by Leonard Bloomfield , Ives Goddard , and others. Algonquian nouns have an animate/inanimate contrast: some nouns are classed as animate , while all other nouns are inanimate . There

100-744: Is either written with a circumflex accent, e.g. ⟨â⟩ , or by simply writing the vowel twice, e.g. ⟨aa⟩ . In addition there are twelve graphemes to represent the consonants, including the digraph ⟨Ch⟩ . Naskapi Syllabics ( ᓇᔅᑲᐱ ᐃᔪᐤ ᐃᔨᒧᐅᓐ , naskapi iyuw iyimuun ) is derived from Canadian Aboriginal syllabics , and while having its unique characteristics, shares many features with other Canadian Cree Syllabic systems. Unlike other Cree Syllabics, long and short vowels are not distinguished. The final forms in Naskapi Syllabics are similar to other varieties of Eastern Cree syllabics . This article related to

125-963: Is giving way to a place distinction. The column titles here refer chiefly to the place of articulation of the long vowel. Macron accent marks over the long vowels are omitted in general writing. e is not written with a macron because there is no contrasting short e . Innu-aimun is a polysynthetic , head-marking language with relatively free word order . Its three basic parts of speech are nouns , verbs , and particles . Nouns are grouped into two genders , animate and inanimate, and may carry affixes indicating plurality , possession , obviation , and location. Verbs are divided into four classes based on their transitivity : animate intransitive (AI), inanimate intransitive (II), transitive inanimate (TI), and transitive animate (TA). Verbs may carry affixes indicating agreement (with both subject and object arguments ), tense , mood , and inversion . Two different sets, or orders , of verbal affixes are used depending on

150-545: Is incorrect, and that Central Algonquian (in which he includes the Plains Algonquian languages) is a genetic subgroup, with Eastern Algonquian consisting of several different subgroups. However, this classification scheme has failed to gain acceptance from other specialists in the Algonquian languages. Instead, the commonly accepted subgrouping scheme is that proposed by Ives Goddard (1994). The essence of this proposal

175-405: Is ongoing debate over whether there is a semantic significance to the categorization of nouns as animate or inanimate, with scholars arguing for it as either a clearly semantic issue, or a purely syntactic issue, along with a variety of arguments in between. More structurally inclined linguistic scholars have argued that since there is no consistent semantic system for determining the animacy of

200-673: Is sometimes said to have included the extinct Beothuk language of Newfoundland , whose speakers were both in geographic proximity to Algonquian speakers and who share DNA in common with the Algonquian-speaking Miꞌkmaq . However, linguistic evidence is scarce and poorly recorded, and it is unlikely that reliable evidence of a connection can be found. The Algonquian language family is known for its complex polysynthetic morphology and sophisticated verb system. Statements that take many words to say in English can be expressed with

225-448: Is that Proto-Algonquian originated with people to the west who then moved east, although Goddard did not attempt to identify a specific western urheimat for Proto-Algonquian in his 1994 paper. By this scenario, Blackfoot was the first language to branch off, which coincides well with its being the most divergent language of Algonquian. In west-to-east order, the subsequent branchings were: This historical reconstruction accords best with

250-755: Is written in Eastern Cree syllabics . The term Naskapi is chiefly used to refer to the language of the people living in the interior of Quebec and Labrador in or around Kawawachikamach, Quebec . Naskapi is a " y-dialect " that has many linguistic features in common with the Northern dialect of East Cree , and also shares many lexical items with the Innu language . Although there is a much closer linguistic and cultural relationship between Naskapi and Innu than between Naskapi and other Cree language communities, Naskapi remains unique and distinct from all other language varieties in

275-487: The Atikamekw ( Nēhinawēwin and Nehirâmowin ) of the Atikamekw ( Nehiraw , Nehirowisiw ) in the upper Saint-Maurice River valley of Quebec . Innu-aimun is divided into four dialects – Southern Montagnais (Mashteuiatsh, Betsiamites), Eastern Montagnais (Ekuanitshit, Nutashkuan, Unamen Shipu, Pakuashipi), Central Montagnais (Uashat and Maliotenam, Matimekosh) and Labrador-Montagnais (Sheshatshit). The speakers of

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300-568: The Plateau region of Idaho and Oregon or the Rocky Mountain-Great Plains boundary of Montana , dropping off subgroups as people migrated. Goddard also points out that there is clear evidence for pre-historical contact between Eastern Algonquian and Cree-Montagnais, as well as between Cheyenne and Arapaho–Gros Ventre. There has long been especially extensive back-and-forth influence between Cree and Ojibwe. It has been suggested that

325-430: The "Eastern Great Lakes" languages – what Goddard has called "Core Central", e.g., Ojibwe–Potawatomi, Shawnee, Sauk–Fox–Kickapoo, and Miami-Illinois (but not Cree–Montagnais or Menominee) – may also constitute their own genetic grouping within Algonquian. They share certain intriguing lexical and phonological innovations. However, this theory has not yet been fully fleshed out and is still considered conjectural. Algonquian

350-703: The Algonquian languages is their direct-inverse (also known as hierarchical ) morphosyntactic alignment , distinguishing between an unmarked voice where the subject outranks the object in a person hierarchy and a marked voice where the opposite relation obtains. Because Algonquian languages were some of the first with which Europeans came into contact in North America, the language family has given many words to English . Many eastern and midwestern U.S. states have names of Algonquian origin ( Massachusetts , Connecticut , Illinois , Michigan , Wisconsin , etc.), as do many cities: Milwaukee , Chicago , et al. Ottawa ,

375-591: The Quebec-Labrador peninsula. Each stop has voiced allophones as [b, d, dʒ, ɡ] and pre-aspirated allophones as [ʰp, ʰt, ʰtʃ, ʰk] . There are two writing systems used for Naskapi language. One is Latin, similar to Innu Language (Montagnais) , and the other is Cree syllabics , similar to James Bay Cree , as well as other dialects of Cree across Canada. The Naskapi Latin alphabet consists of three vowels, ⟨a⟩ , ⟨i⟩ , and ⟨u⟩ , in short form and in long form. The long form

400-614: The capital of Canada , is named after the Algonquian nation, the Odawa people . For a more detailed treatment of geographical names in three Algonquian languages, see the external link to the book by Trumbull. Naskapi language Naskapi (also known as ᐃᔪᐤ ᐃᔨᒧᐅᓐ / Iyuw Iyimuun in the Naskapi language) is an Algonquian language spoken by the Naskapi in Quebec and Labrador , Canada . It

425-648: The classifications of Goddard (1996) and Mithun (1999). Extinct languages are marked with †, and endangered languages are noted as such. For dialects and subdialects, consult the separate main articles for each of the three divisions. Eastern Algonquian is a true genetic subgrouping. The Plains Algonquian and the Central Algonquian groups are not genetic groupings but rather areal groupings. Although these areal groups often do share linguistic features, these commonalities are usually attributed to language contact . Paul Proulx has argued that this traditional view

450-556: The different dialects can communicate well with each other. The Naskapi language and culture are quite different from those of the Montagnais, in which the dialect changes from y to n as in Iiyuu versus Innu . Algonquian languages Speakers of Algonquian languages stretch from the east coast of North America to the Rocky Mountains . The proto-language from which all of

475-491: The discourse. There are personal pronouns which distinguish three persons, two numbers (singular and plural), inclusive and exclusive first person plural , and proximate and obviative third persons. Verbs are divided into four classes: transitive verbs with an animate object (abbreviated "TA"), transitive verbs with an inanimate object ("TI"), intransitive verbs with an animate subject ("AI"), and intransitive verbs with an inanimate subject ("II"). A very notable feature of

500-431: The languages of the family descend, Proto-Algonquian , was spoken around 2,500 to 3,000 years ago. There is no scholarly consensus about where this language was spoken. This subfamily of around 30 languages is divided into three groups according to geography: Plains , Central , and Eastern Algonquian . Of the three, only Eastern Algonquian constitutes a true genetic subgroup. The languages are listed following

525-512: The later solo careers of its founders Claude McKenzie and Florent Vollant . Widely heard hit songs with Innu-language lyrics have included " Ish-kuess " ("Girl"), " E Uassiuian " ("My Childhood"), " Tipatshimun " ("Story") and in particular " Akua tuta " ("Take care of yourself"), which appeared on soundtrack compilations for the television series Due South and the documentary Music for The Native Americans . The lyrics of Akua Tuta are featured on over 50 websites, making this one of

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550-510: The most broadly accessible pieces of text written in any native North American language. Florent Vollant has also rendered several well-known Christmas carols into Innu in his 1999 album Nipaiamianan . In 2013, "a comprehensive pan-Innu dictionary, covering all the Innu dialects spoken in Quebec and Labrador [was] published in Innu, English and French ." Innu-aimun has the following phonemes (with

575-440: The observed levels of divergence within the family, whereby the most divergent languages are found furthest west (since they constitute the earliest branchings during eastern migration), and the shallowest subgroupings are found furthest to the east (Eastern Algonquian, and arguably Core Central). This general west-to-east order is compatible with the proposal from J.P. Denny (1991) that Proto-Algonquian people may have moved east from

600-469: The standard orthography equivalents in angle brackets, this section discusses the Sheshatshit dialect): The plosives are voiced to [b d dʒ ɡ ɡʷ] between vowels. /ʃ/ frequently merges with /h/ in younger speakers ( shīshīp [ʃiʃip ~ ʃihip ~ hihip] ' duck ' ). There are three pairs of so-called "long" and "short" vowels, and one long vowel with no short counterpart, though the length distinction

625-541: The verb's syntactic context . In simple main clauses, the verb is marked using affixes of the independent order , whereas in subordinate clauses and content-word questions, affixes of the conjunct order are used. Innu-aimun is related to East Cree ( Īyiyū Ayimūn – Northern/Coastal dialect and Īnū Ayimūn – Southern/Inland dialect) spoken by the James Bay Cree of the James Bay region of Quebec and Ontario and

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