The Laurentian language (named after the St. Lawrence River , where native speakers lived) is the language of the Iroquois family that existed until the end of the 16th century on the lands of present-day Quebec and Ontario ( Canada ). The word Laurentian language canada (kanata) , meaning "village", became the name of the state of Canada .
| Laurentian language | |
|---|---|
| Self name | is unknown |
| Country | Canada |
| Total number of speakers | not |
| Status | disappeared |
| Extinct | XVI century |
| Classification | |
| Category | Languages of North America |
Iroquois family
| |
| Writing | unwritten |
| Language Codes | |
| ISO 639-1 | - |
| ISO 639-2 | iro |
| ISO 639-3 | |
| IETF | |
| Glottolog | |
Content
History
French explorer Jacques Cartier in 1535 and 1536 discovered several villages in the valley between the villages of Stadakona and Khoshelaga (now - the cities of Quebec and Montreal ). In the XX — XXI centuries. archaeologists have discovered several more villages further to the west, off the eastern coast of Lake Ontario. The Laurentian Iroquois lived in villages a few kilometers from the river. St. Lawrence. Settlements were usually enclosed by a wooden palisade. The largest was about 2,000 inhabitants. Lavrentians periodically abandoned old settlements (possibly due to depletion of soil or other natural resources) and founded new ones. They were the northernmost of the peoples who cultivated corn in the pre-Columbian era (starting from the 3rd century BC) [1] .
To the surprise of S. de Champlain , who arrived in these lands in 1608 , he did not find any traces of the Laurentian Iroquois whom Cartier met. Modern archaeological excavations have shown that the Lavrentians were completely destroyed as a result of tribal wars with their neighbors. According to some scholars, the Lavrentians waged wars with the Hurons and tribes included in the League of the five Iroquois tribes . However, this point of view seems more than controversial given the fact that by the middle of the 16th century the Iroquois-speaking Lavrentians lived in almost complete encirclement of Algon-speaking tribes . From the south and southeast, the lands of the Lavrentians bordered on the Abenaki tribal confederation, in the east on the Allied Abenaki Mikmaks , in the west the Ottawa tribal lands extended, and from the north-west and north, their neighbors were Algonkins and Montagnes . Given the fact that Algonkin tribes and tribal unions rarely fought among themselves, foreign and culturally different Lavrentians appear as the most suitable target for escalating aggression. This point of view is supported by data on the growth of the migration process, in which all northern Algonkin tribes were involved due to the continuing deterioration of climatic conditions throughout the 16th century throughout the North Atlantic (the Small Ice Age ).
Vocabulary
Jacques Cartier published in 1545 a journal of his travels, which included the first of the well-known lists of Laurentian words - the following is a brief excerpt:
| Russian | Laurentian |
|---|---|
| one | segada |
| two | tigneny |
| three | asche |
| four | honnacon |
| five | ouiscon |
| head | aggourzy |
| eyes | hegata |
| ears | ahontascon |
| mouth | escahe |
| teeth | esgougay |
| tongue | osvache |
| village | canada |
The second, shorter list was later published as part of an enlarged version of the magazine, first in Italian, later in English and French.
Judging by the notes of J. Cartier, the Lavrentians spoke several dialects in the 16th century.
Based on the Cartier dictionary, the linguist Marianne Mitun came to the conclusion that the Laurentian language belonged to the Iroquois languages, in addition, there are obvious signs of contacts with the Iroquois lake languages, including the Huronian (Mithun, 1981).
Notes
Links
- List of Web sites on the Laurentian language (Native Languages of the Americas Online Resources)
- Laurentian words
Literature
- Jacques Cartier. (1545). Relation originale de Jacques Cartier . Paris: Tross (1863 edition). (Vocabulary list on pages 46 to 48)
- Floyd G. Lounsbury. (1978). "Iroquoian Languages," Handbook of North American Indians . Volume 15. Pages 334—343.
- Marianne Mithun. (1979). "Iroquoian," in Lyle Campbell and Marianne Mithun, The Languages of Native America . Austin: University of Texas Press. Pages 140-141. ("Laurentian")
- Marianne Mithun. (1981). The Mystery of the Vanished Laurentians, in Papers from the 5th International Congress on Historial Linguistics (Anders Ahlquist, ed.). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Pages 230-242.
- Marianne Mithun. (1999). The languages of Native North America . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-23228-7 (hbk); ISBN 0-521-29875-X .
- James F. Pendergast. (1998). “The Confusing Identities Attributed to Stadacona and Hochelaga,” Journal of Canadian Studies . Volume 32. Pages 149-167.
- Bruce G. Trigger and James F. Pendergast. (1978). Saint Lawrence Iroquoians, Handbook of North American Indians . Volume 15. Pages 357–361.
- Bruce G. Trigger. (1976). The Children of Aataentsic: a History of the Huron People to 1660 . Montreal: McGill-Queen's Press. Pages 214-228. ("The Disappearance of the St. Lawrence Iroquoians")