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72-618: Nonantum (from Massachusett "I bless it"), also known as Silver Lake or The Lake , is one of the thirteen villages within the city of Newton in Middlesex County , Massachusetts , United States, located along the Charles River at the site of a former lake. The village is one of the centers of Italian population in Newton. The commercial area has numerous restaurants and food establishments featuring Italian cuisine . In 1637, Nonantum

144-501: A dialect continuum , with boundaries between languages and dialects softened by transitional speech varieties. Small differences existed between neighboring communities, but these increased with distance and isolation, and speakers from opposite ends of the continuum would have slightly more difficulties with inter-comprehension, but all the SNEA languages and dialects were mutually intelligible to some extent. Numerous dialects were lost during

216-611: A few decades before the first permanent English colonial settlement in New England at Plymouth. When the Pilgrims established their outpost, they were greeted in English by Samoset , originally an Abenaki of coastal Maine, and Tisquantum ('Squanto'), a local Wôpanâak, but both of their home villages were also wiped out by an epidemic caused by infectious agents unknown in the New World. Tisquantum

288-450: A local stem * pere- and an ancient alternative stem for 'fish,' * -aᐧmeᐧkwa , likely Proto-Western SNEA * pīramākw /piːramaːkʷ/ . Although Nipmuc is close to Massachusett, it is conservative in that it retains more noun and verb finals that are truncated in most environments in other SNEA languages. The most defining feature of Massachusett in comparison to other SNEA languages is the outcome of /n/ in reflexes of PEA * r , itself

360-620: A merger of Proto-Algonquian * r and * θ . Massachusett and its dialects always have /n/ and thus its classification as an SNEA N-dialect. This becomes /j/ in the Y-dialects of Narragansett, Eastern and Western Niantic and Mohegan-Pequot, /r/ in the R-dialects of Quiripi and /l/ in the L-dialect Nipmuc language. ^1 Only appears with diminutive as 'puppy,' more common word is náhtiá . ^2 Possibly Williams' recording of

432-497: A non-native speaker, and one of the earliest examples of a Bible translation into a previously unwritten language. Literate Native American ministers and teachers taught literacy to the elites and other members of their communities, influencing a widespread acceptance. This is attested in the numerous court petitions, church records, praying town administrative records, notes on book margins, personal letters, and widespread distribution of other translations of religious tracts throughout

504-464: Is adapted from a 1674 list by Puritan pastor Daniel Gookin . Three praying towns were established in Connecticut: Maanexit (a Nipmuc word meaning "where we gather") is believed to have been located at the site of present-day Fabyan ( Thompson, Connecticut ). Quinnatisset (meaning "little long river") was located six miles south of Maanexit, and Wabaquasset (meaning "mats for covering

576-440: Is also very likely to have been interchangeable in some dialects. The majority of the people of Nati ck also mainly used the older variant despite Eliot using the alternate form in his translations. This may be explained by the fact that the original settlers of Natick were Massachusett people from Neponse t , but after King Philip's War, the community attracted many Nipmuc whose dialects generally prefer /-ək/ . As Eliot employed

648-752: Is in the Eastern branch of Algonquian languages , which comprises all the known Algonquian languages spoken from the Canadian Maritimes southward to the Carolinas. Within the Eastern divisions, Massachusett clusters with the Southern New England Algonquian (SNEA) languages. If considered a dialect of SNEA, it is an SNEA 'N-dialect.' Other Eastern language divisions include the Abenakian languages spoken to

720-518: Is increasing. Until the end of the 17th century, Massachusett was a locally important language. In its simplified pidgin form, it was adopted as a regional lingua franca of New England and Long Island. As a native language, its dialects were spoken by several peoples inhabiting the coastal and insular regions of Massachusetts, adjacent portions of northern and southeastern Rhode Island, and portions of southeastern and coastal New Hampshire, with transitional dialects historically extending as far north as

792-716: Is likely that Massachusett Pidgin English lost its native features and merged with the evolution of local speech, one of the varieties of Eastern New England English or even General American of the majority non-Native Americans of the region in a process similar to decreolization . Massachusett Pidgin English had the following characteristics: Massachusett loan words (shared Massachusett Pidgin vocabulary) Praying town Praying towns were settlements established by English colonial governments in New England from 1646 to 1675 in an effort to convert local Native Americans to Christianity . The Native people who moved into

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864-564: The Boston Globe speculated that it is a blend of Italian and some World War II code, but others have seen similarities to Angloromani or Italian Romany slang. In the late 1800s and early 1900s natives of Castelvenere , a town and comune in the Province of Benevento , Campania region, Italy, settled in Nonantum, the first Italian immigrants. Many people in the village now who claim they were

936-510: The /-ət/ alone is not diagnostic of Massachusett. The traditional method of referring to the language was simply hettꝏonk ( hutuwôk ) /hətəwãk/ , 'that which they [can] speak to each other' Dialects or languages that were harder to understand were siogontꝏwaonk ( sayakôtuwâôk ) /sajakãtəwaːãk/ , 'difficult language', contrasting with penꝏwantꝏaog ( peen8wôtuwâôk ) /piːnuːwãtəwaːãk/ , 'foreign' or 'strange language.' When needed to refer to specific people or places,

1008-461: The /-ət/ form in his translations, this form spread as the 'standard' in writing. Many instances seem to have been standardized by colonial mapmakers and Indian translators themselves. For instance, the colonists referred to a hill that once existed as Hassunek or Hassunet Hill, but the name survives today as Assone t Street in Worcester. Similarly, Asnacome t Pond, in a formerly Nipmuc-language area,

1080-853: The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England , which would fund the establishment of an Indian College at Harvard and a press in Cambridge for printing Eliot's Christian commentaries in Massachusett. Between 1651 and 1675, the General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony had established 14 praying towns. The first two praying towns of Natick (est. 1651) and Ponkapoag (est. 1654), were primarily populated by Massachusett people . Wamesit

1152-561: The 'Fox Sachem' of the Pequot was known to late-stage speakers as Wôqs /wãkʷs/ whereas the English name 'Uncas' likely preserves an older dialectal and pre-syncopated stage pronunciation of /[w]ãkʷəhs/ , cf. Massachusett wonquiss ( wôquhs ) /wãkʷəhs/ , indicating that the transition was not complete in New England when the English colonists arrived. When it appears in Massachusett documents, it seems to be indicative of dialectal features or in forced situations, such as sung versions of

1224-621: The Coweset dialect. 'Abenakian syncope' was an areal feature that had spread from the Abenakian languages to Mahican , a Delawarean language, and was beginning to spread into SNEA during the early colonial period. The feature was obligatory in the Quiripi, Unquachoag, Montauk, Mohegan and Pequot dialects of the Long Island sound, frequent in Nipmuc and mostly absent in Massachusett and Narragansett. For example

1296-487: The General Court disbanded 10 of the original 14 towns. They placed the rest under the supervision of colonists. Many communities did survive and retained their own religious and education systems. While praying towns had some successes, they never reached the level which John Eliot had hoped for. The Puritans were pleased with the conversions, but Praying Indians were still considered second-rate citizens and never gained

1368-617: The Massachusett (people).' Massachusee was the correct short form in traditional Massachusett usage to refer to the people and the language, despite the adoption of Massachusett in English, hence the translation of the Massachusett Psalter as Massachusee Psalter . The people and language take their name from the sacred hill, known in English as Great Blue Hill . The name derives from missi- ( muhs- ), 'big,' 'sacred,' or 'great,' [w]achuwees ( [w]achuwees ) /[w]atʃəw[iː]s/ , 'hill' (literally 'small mountain') and

1440-713: The Massachusett translations of the Psalms of David in the Massachusee Psalter. In dialects that permitted syncopation, it generally involved the deletion of /ə/ , /a/ and occasionally /iː/ , usually at the end of a word, after a long vowel, or metrical factors such as the Algonquian stress rules which deleted these vowels in weakly stressed positions. In Massachusett, there are some syncopated forms such as kuts /kəts/ , ' cormorant ,' and ꝏsqheonk /wəskʷhjᵊãk/ , 'his/her blood,' but these are rare instances compared to

1512-563: The Massachusett, Pawtucket, Wampanoag, Nauset, and Coweset peoples, although the Nauset may have just been an isolated sub-tribe of the Wampanoag. Several regional pidgin varieties of major Eastern Algonquian languages are attested in colonial records, including those based on Mahican, Munsee, Powhatan, and in New England, Massachusett. These pidgin varieties all featured reduced vocabulary and grammar simplifications. These pidgin varieties were used as

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1584-649: The Massachusett-language documents, indicating it was a dialectal feature. In place names of Algonquian origin in Massachusetts, the Massachusett innovation covers most of the Massachusett, Pawtucket, Wampanoag and Coweset areas and also seems to have spread into Narragansett and Nipmuc. However, the Nantucket and Nauset were historically /-ək/ , as were many dialects of Nipmuc and likely in Narragansett, although it

1656-638: The Massachusetts Bay and Plymouth colonies initially referred to Massachusett as the Indian language , at first because they were unaware of the ethnic and linguistic boundaries between peoples. Massachusett was adopted as a general term, although due to the influence of the Indian mission and the success of the Praying Town of Natick, Natick also was a common reference to the language, especially in written form. In

1728-792: The Natick do.' Small differences can be ascertained from the written sources, but most records indicate that the Massachusett-speaking people spoke very similarly to each other. Daniel Gookin, who had accompanied Eliot on his tours of the Praying towns, noted that the Pawtucket, Pokanoket (Mashpee Wampanoag), and Massachusett all spoke essentially the same language. Ives Goddard, in quoting the ethnopolitical boundaries as listed by John R. Swanton or Frederick Webb Hodge lists five dialects, Natick, North Shore, Wampanoag, Nauset and Coweset which correspond to

1800-541: The Native Americans considered the praying towns as refuges from warfare. Other tribes had been all but destroyed from disease and famine, and possibly looked to Christianity and the Puritan way of life as an answer to their suffering, when their traditional beliefs did not seem to have helped them. Other Natives joined the towns because they had no other option economically or politically. After King Philip's War in 1677,

1872-404: The Native Americans well, but the Native Americans would speak to each other at times in a similar but baffling tongue, either as their natural language but also probably to restrict information exchange with the foreign English settlers. The pidgin variety varied from Massachusett in the following ways: Simplification of vocabulary Use of non-Massachusett vocabulary Reduction of verbs to

1944-517: The Neponset band of Massachusetts, but was first well received when preaching at in 1646 at Nonantum in present day Newton , meaning "place of rejoicing" in Massachusett. The sermon led to a friendship with Waban ( Nipmuc , c.  1604 – c.  1685 ), who became the first Native American in Massachusetts to convert to Christianity. News of Eliot's evangelism reached England, and in 1649, Cromwell 's Parliament passed an Act creating

2016-520: The Peace were introduced, they were often designated with names identical to those of traditional Native American offices. The elected officials were often chosen from the ranks of the established tribal leadership. In some cases, Native hereditary rulers retained power. The communities also used their own languages as the language of administration, producing an abundance of legal and administrative documents that survive to this day. However, their self-government

2088-609: The Plymouth Colony, both Massachusett and Wampanoag , especially since the colony covered most of their traditional territory, were in general use. These three terms remain the most common way of referring to the language in English today, supplanting older colonial names such as Nonantum , Pokanoket or Aberginian . In more technical contexts, Massachusett is often known by names referring to its pan-ethnic usage, such as Massachusett-Wampanoag , Wampanoag-Massachusett , Massachusett-Coweset or Massachusett-Narragansett , although

2160-426: The SNEA languages, including Massachusett, can be differentiated from other Eastern branch languages by several shared innovations including the merger of PEA * hr and * hx into * hš , palatization of PEA * k to SNEA * t where it occurs after PEA * ē and some instances of PA * i , palatization of PEA * sk in similar environments to * hč and word-final PEA * r merging into * š . Within SNEA, Massachusett shares

2232-611: The Wampanoag of Cape Cod and the Islands, with a handful of children who are growing up as the first native speakers in more than a century. Yurok (Puliklah) language (revived) Wiyot (Wishosk) language (†) Plains Algonquian Central Algonquian Abenakian Massachusett language (revived) Narragansett language (†) Nipmuc language (†) Quiripi-Naugatuck-Unquachog language (†) Mohegan-Pequot-Montauk language (†) Delaware languages Nanticoke language (†) Powhatan (†) Carolina Algonquian (†) Massachusett

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2304-520: The area surrounding four communities on Cape Cod and the Islands and nearby regions just a little "off Cape" including Mashpee , Aquinnah , Freetown , and Cedarville, Plymouth which are the home of the federally recognized Mashpee and Aquinnah tribes and Assonet and Herring Pond communities that participate in the Wôpanâak Language Reclamation Project. Other groups with some ancestry from Massachusett-speaking peoples include

2376-508: The area. Massachusett language The language is most notable for its community of literate Native Americans and for the number of translations of religious texts into the language. John Eliot 's translation of the Christian Bible in 1663 using the Natick dialect, known as Mamusse Wunneetupanatamwe Up-Biblum God , was the first printed in the Americas, the first Bible translated by

2448-412: The colonial period. The dialects of the language were formerly spoken by several peoples of southern New England , including all the coastal and insular areas of eastern Massachusetts , as well as southeastern New Hampshire , the southernmost tip of Maine and eastern Rhode Island , and it was also a common second or third language across most of New England and portions of Long Island . The use of

2520-631: The colonists considered "uncivilized." The Massachusetts General Court recognized the work of Eliot and helped to establish additional praying towns. The idea of a full conversion was in strong contrast to the approach of the Catholic Jesuits in Canada. They worked to add Christianity to the Natives' existing beliefs, as opposed to replacing them. They learned Native American languages and found ways to relate Christian principles to their existing religions (as

2592-424: The degree of trust or respect from colonists which they had hoped conversion would grant them. It has also been argued that the Natives had a difficult time adjusting to the impersonal society of colonial America, since theirs had been built upon relationships and reciprocity , while that of the colonists were more structured and institutionalized. According to this view, this difference made it hard for Natives to see

2664-501: The depopulation of the Native peoples due to outbreaks of disease and the chaos of King Philip's War. Although afflicted by several epidemics caused by exposure to pathogens to which they had no previous exposure, the outbreak of leptospirosis in 1616–19 and a virulent smallpox epidemic in 1633 nearly cleared the land of Native Americans. The first outbreak hit the densely populated coastal areas with mortality rates as high as 90 percent, but

2736-594: The establishment of praying towns. In the 1630s and 1640s, Eliot worked with bilingual indigenous Algonquians including John Sassamon , an orphan of the Smallpox pandemic of 1633, and Cockenoe , an enslaved Montauk prisoner of the Pequot War , to translate several Christian works, eventually including the Bible , into Massachusett . Having learned quite a bit of Massachusett, Eliot began preaching and practicing evangelism among

2808-532: The first to discover the "Lake" are descendants of natives of San Donato Val di Comino in the Province of Frosinone , Lazio , Italy. According to the article, examples of words and phrases in Lake Talk include: Former Massachusetts State Auditor Joe DeNucci , a Nonantum native, told the Globe : Lake talk is not confined to the neighborhood. Nonantum students have spread it to Newton North High School , which serves

2880-418: The forced internment of praying Indians on Deer Island , many of whom died during the winter of 1675. After the war, many of the originally praying towns which were allotted were never reestablished, however some praying towns remained. Living descendants in New England trace their ancestry to residents of praying towns. John Eliot was an English colonist and Puritan minister who played an important role in

2952-410: The house") was taken over by the development of present-day Woodstock, Connecticut . These three towns held between 100 and 150 Nipmuc tribal members. The Puritan missionaries' goal in creating praying towns was to convert Native Americans to Christianity and also adopt European customs and farming techniques. They were expected to give up own cultural lifeways, attire, religion, and anything else that

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3024-814: The immediate north and the Delawaran languages to the west and southwest of the SNEA region. South of the Delawaran languages are the Nanticokan languages of the Chesapeake Bay and Potomac River watershed, the Powhatan languages of coastal Virginia and the Carolina Algonquian languages of the Carolinas. The Eastern languages are the only genetic grouping to have emerged from Algonquian, as all the languages descend from Proto-Eastern Algonquian (PEA), which differentiated likely due to isolation from other Algonquian speakers due to

3096-485: The institutionalized structures as a whole, and John Eliot had failed to see the need for adaptations appropriate for smoother transitions. Other historians have noted that the Praying Indian communities exercised self-government by electing their own rulers and officials. This system exhibited a degree of continuity with their precontact social system. While English-style offices, such as constables and Justices of

3168-468: The intransitive inanimate Although the use of Massachusett Pidgin declined in favor of Massachusett Pidgin English, especially once the English settlers established their foothold and saw little use in the language of a people whose lands they were usurping and were dying off from disease. Interest in Massachusett Pidgin and other Algonquian pidgin languages comes from the fact that they were likely

3240-590: The language in the intertribal communities of Christian converts, called praying towns , resulted in its adoption by some groups of Nipmuc and Pennacook . The revitalization of the language began in 1993 when Jessie Little Doe Baird ( Mashpee Wampanoag ) launched the Wôpanâak Language Reclamation Project (WLRP). It has successfully reintroduced the revived Wampanoag dialect to the Mashpee , Aquinnah , Assonet, and Herring Pond communities of

3312-474: The larger Wampanoag, isolated Wampanoag settlements on the islands of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket and Mashpee on the mainland. After another century of extreme assimilation pressure, intermarriage, and the necessity of learning and using English in daily life, the language disappeared from Massachusett-speaking communities by the 19th century, with the very last speakers dying off at the century's end on Martha's Vineyard. Contemporary speakers are restricted to

3384-498: The latter epidemic had a broader impact. The epidemics opened the Massachusett-speaking peoples to attacks from regional rivals, such as the Narragansett and Pennacook and historic enemies such as the Tarratine (Abenaki) and Mohawk, as well as removed any resistance to colonial expansion. The war caused many Native peoples to flee the area, and remnant populations regrouped, merging dialect communities and disparate peoples. Knowledge of

3456-498: The locative suffix -ett ( -ut ). The syncopation of the diminutive ( -ees ) to -s was common in dialects and rapid or relaxed speech, thus the colonial form wachus as opposed to careful Massachusett ( wachuwees ). The Wampanoag tribes affiliated with the WLRP refer to the language as ( Wôpanâôtuwâôk ), possibly back-rendered into the colonial spelling as Wampanaontꝏwaonk , 'Wampanoag language' to refer not only to

3528-418: The main source of words from the Algonquian languages. For instance, the early Pilgrims and Puritans only make references to wigwams and never wetu s . Similarly, sagamore was in common frequency as sachem in the early English of New England. A handful of Native Americans had rudimentary knowledge of English through occasional contacts with English seafarers, adventurers, fishermen and traders for

3600-417: The majority of linguists consider Narragansett a separate albeit closely related language. Due to the heavy scholarly, cultural and media attention surrounding the revival of the language under the Wôpanâak Language Reclamation Project of Jessie Little Doe Baird, and also because the Wampanoag far outnumber Massachusett people, the use of 'Wampanoag' or its revived form 'Wôpanâak' to refer to the entire language

3672-410: The medium of communication between speakers of dialects or languages with limited mutual intelligibility. Massachusett Pidgin was used as a common language over New England and Long Island and was likely used with the foreign English settlers. For instance, Edward Winslow describes a situation in his 1624 Good News from New England where he and a few other Pilgrims were able to converse and understand

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3744-466: The more common kuttis ( kutuhs ) /kətəhs/ and wusqueheonk ( wusqeeheôk ) /wəskʷiːhjᵊãk/ , respectively, that also appear in Eliot's translations. Although a clear dialectal feature, unfortunately, the majority of documents are of unknown authorship and geographic origin. The locative suffix, as in 'Massachus ett ' with /-ət/ prevails in a three-to-one ratio over the older /-ək/ variant in

3816-438: The most similarity to Narragansett and Nipmuc, its immediate neighbors, with a handful of lexical items indicating an east-west division. For example, the word 'fish' is namohs ( namâhs ) in Massachusett, namens In Nipmuc and Narragansett namaùs , all likely pronounced similarly to /namaːhs/ from Proto-Algonquian * nameᐧʔsa , contrasting with Mohegan-Pequot piyamáq and Quiripi opéramac which derives from

3888-472: The name of the people or place was followed by unnontꝏwaog ( unôtuwâôk ) /ənãtəwaːãk/ to indicate 'its people's language' or 'that which the people speak'. In the colonial period, the language was generally known as Massachusett unnontꝏwaonk ( Muhsachuweesut unôtuwâôk ) /məhsatʃəwiːsət ənãtəwaːãk/ , 'language of the Massachusett (region)' or Massachusee unnontꝏwaonk ( Muhsachuweesee unôtuwâôk ) /məhsatʃəwiːsiː ənãtəwaːãk/ , 'language of

3960-424: The number of English settlers grew and quickly outnumbered the local peoples, Natives grew to use English more often, and the settlers also used it to communicate with the Native Americans. The resulting pidgin was probably the vector of transmission of many of the so-called 'wigwam words,' i.e., local Algonquian loan words, that were once prevalent in the English spoken in the Americas. Massachusett Pidgin English

4032-481: The presence of large pockets of Iroquoian and Siouan languages and the Appalachian Mountains . The Central and Plains , however, are groupings based on areal features and geographical proximity. The SNEA languages were all mutually intelligible to some extent, existing in a dialect chain or linkage , with the boundaries between quite distinct dialects blurred by a series of transitional varieties. All

4104-511: The settlers. Nonantum was the first village of " praying Indians " gathered by Eliot, for which it was given the name "I bless it." Starting in 1778, when a paper mill was established by David Bemis (father of Seth Bemis ) on the Charles River at Bridge Street, industrial uses replaced farming, and Nonantum became a site for production of cottons, woolens, and rope. Industrial work brought Irish, French Canadian, Italian, and Jewish immigrants to

4176-438: The southernmost tip of Maine. Due to the waves of epidemics that killed off most of the Native peoples, competition with the large influx of English colonists for land and resources, and the great upheaval in the wake of King Philip's War , by the beginning of the 18th century, the language and its speakers had contracted into a shrinking land base and population, concentrated in the former praying towns of Natick and Ponkapoag and

4248-562: The spoken language and its diversity ceased with the death of the last speakers of SNEA languages. Most had ceased to be functional, everyday languages of the Native American communities by the end of the eighteenth century, if not sooner, and all were extinct by the dawning of the twentieth century. Most linguistic knowledge relies on word lists and passing mention in colonial sources, which can only provide very limited understanding. Written records do show some variation, but dialect leveling

4320-499: The spoken language as well, as it was recited when Bible passages were read aloud during sermons or any written document. Experience Mayhew , himself bilingual in the language and from a direct line of missionaries to the Native Americans of Martha's Vineyard, where the speech was said to be completely unintelligible to neighboring Wampanoag from the mainland noted that '... most of the little differences betwixt them have been happily Lost, and our Indians Speak, but especially write much as

4392-535: The towns were known as Praying Indians . Before 1674 the villages were the most ambitious experiment in converting Native Americans to Christianity in the Thirteen Colonies , and led to the creation of the first books in an Algonquian language , including the first bible printed in British North America. During King Philip's War from 1675 to 1678, many praying towns were depopulated, in part due to

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4464-683: The tribes that absorbed the refugees of King Philip's War such as the Abenaki ( Alnôbak ) of northern New Hampshire, Vermont and Québec ; the Schaghticoke ( Pishgachtigok ) of western Connecticut along the border with New York and the Brothertown or Brotherton ( Eeyawquittoowauconnuck ) and Stockbridge-Munsee ( Mahiikaniiw - Munsíiw ) , both amalgamations of peoples of southern New England and elsewhere that relocated to Wisconsin. The Southern New England Algonquian languages existed in

4536-432: The varieties used historically by the Wampanoag people, but also to the Massachusett language as a whole. The name derives from wampan- ( wôpan- ), 'east' or 'dawn,' and thus signifies 'language of the easterners' or 'language of the people of the dawn.' Modern speakers of the revived dialect shorten this to ( Wôpanâak ) (Wampanoag), even though this technically refers only to the people. The English settlers of

4608-410: The village. Silver Lake was a site of winter recreation for neighborhood children, who cleared the snow each winter and played hockey on it through the 1950s. It was filled with construction rubble and built over from the 1930s until its total demise in 1971. Lake Talk is a cryptolect spoken particularly among older Italian-American residents. The origins of Lake Talk are unclear. A 2001 article in

4680-578: Was abducted by the crew of English vessel, sold into slavery in Spain , mysteriously found his way to London where gained employment on English explorations of the North American coast and later escaped and took up residence in a neighboring Wôpanâak village. As the Native Americans were already in a multi-dialectal, multilingual society, English was adopted quite quickly albeit with strong influences of Massachusett lexicon, grammar and likely pronunciation. As

4752-551: Was also done by Catholic missionaries in China). Some Natives were quick to accept conversion , while others did not like the idea of a full conversion. The process was not always an easy one, and there were many reasons for some to undertake conversion. Some Natives converted because they believed it might increase their legitimacy in the eyes of the colonists and thus recognition of their rights to their land. Because of intertribal and intratribal strife and conflict with colonists, some of

4824-547: Was brought about with the introduction of a de facto standard written language as used in Eliot's translation of the Bible and several primers and catechisms used to teach literacy, were produced with the aid of Native American translators, editors and interpreters from Natick, and was based on its speech. The employment of numerous literate Native Americans across Massachusetts Bay and Plymouth colonies' Praying towns, many from Natick or had studied there for some time, helped elevate

4896-455: Was established for the Pawtucket, who were part of the Pennacook confederacy. The other praying towns were established as Nipmuc outposts including Wabquasset, Quinnetusset, and Maanexit. Quaboag, far from the other settlements, was never established due to the outbreak of King Philip's War. The Plymouth, Connecticut, and Rhode Island Colonies also established praying towns. The following list

4968-405: Was mostly English in vocabulary, but included numerous loan words, grammar features and calques of Massachusett Pidgin. Amongst the Native Americans, it co-existed with the use of the 'standard' Massachusett language, local speech and other dialects or languages, Massachusett Pidin and English. As the Native Americans began a quick process of language shift at the end of the eighteenth century, it

5040-583: Was originally called the North Village, and took the name only when the Nonantum Worsted Company bought the neighborhood's Dalby Mills in the 1880s, becoming the major employer. European settlers claimed ownership of this land and forced Waban and his people to relocate to Natick, then divided it into small farms. The region was originally called Cohannet by the Indigenous people but renamed Nonantum by

5112-425: Was recorded as 'Asacancomi c in the older colonial sources. This 'correction' stops at the Connecticut River, as most place names from areas associated with Mahican, such as Hoos ic , Housaton ic , Mahkeen ak , Quass uck and Mananos ick and Pocomtuc examples such as Podat uck , Pocumt uck , Suns ick , Norwott uck and Pachass ic noticeably lack this feature. Nevertheless, because of the wide dialectal variation,

5184-525: Was the name given by the General Assembly of the Massachusetts Bay Colony to a village in what is today Newton Corner that it set aside for converted Native American as a result of missionary work by John Eliot at the home of Waban , often identified as the first Massachusett to convert to Christianity, although there is no evidence of his conversion. The current neighborhood of Nonantum

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