Nawathinehena language facts for kids

Nawathinehena was an Algonquian language that is now extinct. It was once spoken by some of the Arapaho people. This language was quite different from other related languages like Gros Ventre or Arapaho proper.

Nawathinehena is thought to have been the language of the Southern Arapaho. These people later started speaking Arapaho proper during the 1800s. We don't have many records of Nawathinehena. Most of what we know comes from a list of words collected in 1899. This list was put together by a researcher named Alfred L. Kroeber from the Oklahoma Arapaho.

A Language of the Arapaho People

The Arapaho are a group of Native Americans who traditionally lived on the Great Plains of North America. Like many groups, they had their own unique language. Over time, different groups of Arapaho might have spoken slightly different versions of the language. Nawathinehena was one of these distinct versions.

An "extinct language" means that no one speaks it as their native language anymore. It's like a species of animal that no longer exists. Sometimes, we only have old records or word lists left to learn about these languages.

How Nawathinehena Was Different

Even though Nawathinehena shared many features with the Arapaho language, it had some very interesting differences in its sounds. This is called "phonological development," which means how the sounds of a language change over many years.

For example, in many Algonquian languages, certain sounds changed into an "n" sound in Arapaho. But in Nawathinehena, these same sounds changed into a "t" sound instead. This change is similar to what happened in other languages like Blackfoot and Cheyenne.

Another unique sound change in Nawathinehena involved the "w" sound. In Arapaho, the old "w" sound often merged with other sounds to become an "n." However, in Nawathinehena, this "w" sound changed into an "m" sound instead. These small differences in sounds made Nawathinehena distinct from its relatives.

Discovering Nawathinehena

We know about Nawathinehena mostly because of Alfred L. Kroeber. He was an important American anthropologist, someone who studies human societies and cultures. In 1899, he visited the Arapaho people in Oklahoma. During his visit, he collected a list of words from a speaker of Nawathinehena.

This word list is very important. It's one of the few records we have of this unique language. Without Kroeber's work, we might not know anything about Nawathinehena today. It helps us understand the rich history of languages spoken by Native American peoples.