Delaware languages facts for kids

Map showing the original areas where Delaware languages were spoken. It shows the Munsee territory and different Unami areas.

The Delaware languages, also known as the Lenape languages, (Lënapei èlixsuwakàn in Lenape) are two closely related languages: Munsee and Unami. These languages are part of the Eastern Algonquian group, which is a branch of the larger Algonquian language family.

Long ago, the Lenape people spoke Munsee and Unami. They lived near what is now New York City in the United States. This area included places like western Long Island, Manhattan, and Staten Island. They also lived in nearby mainland areas such as southeastern New York State, eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Connecticut, Maryland, and Delaware.

Understanding the Delaware Languages

The Lenape language is part of a big language family called Algic. Within this family, it belongs to the Algonquian branch. More specifically, it's part of the Eastern Algonquian group. This means that the Delaware languages are related to many other languages spoken by Indigenous peoples across North America.

Many Algonquian languages are now "sleeping." This means they are not spoken as a first language by many people anymore. Some are only known from old records. The Eastern Algonquian languages were spoken along the Atlantic coast. They stretched from what is now Canada's Maritime provinces down to North Carolina.

Munsee and Unami are very close. They came from a shared older language that we can call Common Delaware. Over time, these two languages changed in different ways.

Where the Lenape People Lived

The name "Lenni Lenape" means 'Human Beings' or 'Real People' in the Unami language. The Lenape people also call themselves Lennape or Lenapi. In Unami, it's Lënape, and in Munsee, it's Lunaapeew, meaning "the people."

The name "Delaware" was given by the English. They named the people after the Delaware River. The river itself was named after Lord De La Warr, who was a governor of the Jamestown, Virginia colony. The English used "Delaware" for almost all Lenape people living near this river.

Hundreds of years ago, in the 1600s, there were about forty Lenape village groups. Each group might have had a few hundred people. It's estimated that around 1600 AD, there were about 6,500 Unami speakers and 4,500 Munsee speakers. These groups were not politically united. The names Delaware, Munsee, and Unami came into use later, as these groups became more organized.

When European settlers first arrived, the Lenape lived in small communities. Over more than two hundred years, many Lenape people were forced to move from their homes. This happened because of new policies and broken treaties by the United States. This difficult journey is sometimes called The Long Walk. It led to almost all Lenape-speaking people being moved far away from their original homeland. They ended up in places like Oklahoma, Kansas, Wisconsin, upstate New York, and Canada.

Today, two main Unami-speaking groups are in Oklahoma. These are the Registered (Cherokee) Delaware and the Absentee Delaware. The Unami language is no longer spoken as a first language there. However, members of the Delaware tribes are learning to speak it fluently. The Delaware Tribe of Indians is working hard to bring the language back to life.

Munsee groups also moved to several places in southern Ontario, Canada. These include Moraviantown, Munceytown, and Six Nations. In the late 1800s, Munsee-Delaware and Moraviantown children were sent to a school where only English was allowed. This caused the Lenape language to disappear quickly in some areas. But in Moraviantown, the language was used daily, which helped keep it alive.

As of 2018, only two fluent first-language Munsee speakers remain at Moraviantown. They are 77 and 90 years old. There are no fluent speakers left at Munsee-Delaware Nation. However, community members are working to revitalize the language there too.

Different Ways of Speaking

Munsee and Unami are very similar in how they sound and are put together. Because of this, Lenape speakers sometimes thought of them as different ways of speaking the same language. For example, an old book from 1827 about the Lenape language didn't even mention them as separate "dialects."

However, Munsee and Unami are different enough in their grammar, sounds, and words that people who speak them might not fully understand each other. So, more recently, language experts have started to treat them as separate languages.

Munsee Delaware was spoken in the central and lower Hudson River Valley. It was also used in western Long Island, the upper Delaware River Valley, and the northern part of New Jersey.

Unami Delaware was spoken south of the Munsee speakers. This was in the Delaware River Valley and New Jersey, south of the Delaware Water Gap.

There were also three main ways of speaking Unami: Northern Unami, Southern Unami, and Unalachtigo.

• Northern Unami is no longer spoken. We know about it from old records.
• The Unalachtigo way of speaking is not well known. It was used in the area between Northern and Southern Unami.
• Southern Unami is the way of speaking that is reflected in the Unami Delaware spoken by the Delawares in Oklahoma today.

Names for the People

The names for Munsee and Unami speakers can be a bit confusing in both English and the Lenape language.

• The Unami language is sometimes called Delaware or Delaware proper. This is because the name "Delaware" was first used for Unami speakers.
• Both Munsee and Unami speakers might call themselves Delaware in English if they are officially part of a tribe. If not, they might use Lenape.
• The Unamis in Oklahoma are sometimes called Oklahoma Delaware.
• The Munsees in Ontario, Canada, are sometimes called Ontario Delaware or Canadian Delaware.

Some Delawares at Moraviantown also use the term Christian Indian to describe themselves in English. In Munsee, there's a similar term, ké·ntə̆we·s, which means 'one who prays' or 'Moravian convert'.

Munsee speakers call the Oklahoma Delawares "Unami" in English. The Oklahoma Delawares call themselves "Delaware" in English and ləná·p·e in Unami.

The name Lenape is sometimes used in English to refer to both Delaware languages together. Unami speakers also use "Lenape" for their own language in English. Munsee speakers call their language Lunaapeew in English.

How the Languages Sound

Munsee and Unami have similar sounds, but they are not exactly the same. They also have similar rules for how words are stressed. However, Unami has changed over time, especially in how it stresses certain words.

Both Munsee and Unami have a set of consonant sounds, like 'm', 'n', 'p', 't', 'k', 's', 'h', 'l', 'w', and 'y'. Unami also has some longer consonant sounds.

The languages also have vowel sounds, like 'i', 'o', 'e', and 'a'. These can be long or short. Munsee and Unami have slightly different ways of using these vowel sounds.

Words from Other Languages

Both Munsee and Unami have words that they borrowed from European languages. This happened when the Lenape people first met European traders and settlers. The first Europeans to spend a lot of time with the Delaware people were the Dutch. Because of this, many borrowed words in Munsee and Unami come from Dutch.

Many of these borrowed words are nouns, which are names for things. These were often new items that the Lenape people saw from the Europeans. Here are some examples of words borrowed from Dutch:

More recently, words have been borrowed from English. For example, in Munsee, ahtamó·mpi·l means 'automobile', and kátəl means 'cutter'. There is also one known Swedish word in Unami: típa·s, which means 'chicken'.

Writing the Languages

There isn't one single, official way to write Munsee or Unami. However, the Delaware Tribe of Indians has created a spelling system for the Unami language. This system is now the most common way to write Unami. Also, the Muncy people at the Six Nations Reserve in Canada have made their own standard way to write the Munsee language. This new Munsee standard is used in teaching materials for children in schools.

Language experts sometimes use special symbols, like those from the International Phonetic Alphabet, to write down the sounds of these languages. This helps them record sounds that don't have a clear letter in regular alphabets.

Over time, different ways of writing Munsee and Unami have been made for language preservation projects. For example, a recent dictionary for Munsee uses a special writing system. There is also an online Unami dictionary called the Lenape Talking Dictionary that uses its own system.