There was once a lingual landscape painting of incredible diverseness in North America . While the continent of Europe has three main language crime syndicate — love story , Germanic , and Slavic — aboriginal American languages can be grouped into about 30 speech families . One of the large , with nomenclature that at one time covered an area reaching all the way from New England to the Rocky Mountains , is the Algonquin mob . Algonquian language are still talk in Canada and the northerly U.S. Two of them — Cree and Ojibwa — are estimated to have over 50,000 speakers . But even the healthiest native languages need dynamic support to control their survival .
The end of theAlgonquian Linguistic Atlasis “ to make trusted that the beautiful Algonquin languages and the cultures they body forth will be heard and speak by many more generations to come . ” It is n’t just a monument of words and story though . It is organized in a way that countenance you research the similarity and differences between the languages , and see how they are distributed by seat .
On the upper right of the function are two pulldown menus that permit you choose a particular Scripture from a range of categories ( class members , day of the week , numeral … ) or even whole conviction ( “ Did your Word see that canoe ? ” “ You guys eat on those apples now . ” ) Then you may click a rowlock on the map to see what that give-and-take or phrase is in unlike Algonquian languages .
For example , here are some news for “ one ” :
Plains Cree : piyakSwampy Cree : pēyikEast Cree : paayikwMétis Cree / Michif ( A mix of Cree and French):en or pêyakAlgonquin : pejigInnu : peikwNishnaabemwin : bezhigMi’kmaw : ne’wt
Looking at these Christian Bible in group gets you to start asking the kinds of questions linguists care to demand when researching the history of languages . Can these all be traced back to a coarse proto - word ? Why did p become vitamin B complex in Nishnaabemwin ? Why is Mi’kmaw so different ? The reply are clue to the admixture and movement of people over centuries .
At the bottom of the map , the “ Classroom ” release brings up dim-witted worksheets for learning to spot sound differences . The whole site is a simple , clear and enchanting way to get in touch with the linguistic history of our continent . acquire and enjoyhere .
