Eastern Abenaki

Western and Eastern Abenaki share many similarities but are also different in striking ways, not only in vocabulary but also Phonology .

PHONOLOGY

The Abenaki Alphabet consists of 21 letters representing 19 phonemes (B and D are redundant):
Aa Bb Cc Dd Ee Gg Hh Ii Jj Kk Ll Mm Nn Oo 8 Pp Ss Tt Uu Ww Zz

Vowels

Abenaki has 5 simple vowel phonemes and two phonemes for Semivowel s, one of which has two very distinct Allophone s.
/i/ is instantiated as /e/ at the end of a word and /i/ in the middle of a word.

Consonants

B is used interchangeably with P, and D is usually used likewise with T.

J is pronounced as /dz/, C is always Ch and pronounced as /ts/.
In some cases D may represent a "soft" version of /t/.

GRAMMAR

Nouns

Nouns have two classes: animate or inanimate, and two numbers: single and plural.

Pronouns

Personal Pronouns

nia - I

gia - thou

=Demonstratives

yo - this

ni - that

Interrogatives

awani - who

gagwi - what

Verbs

Regular verbs are inflected for person and always end in a vowel.

Infinitive

The suffix -mek indicates an infinitive.

Present Tense

To inflect for first or second person in the present tense, the verb stem is prefixed with a N' in front of a consonant or a Nd' preceding a vowel.

The third person simply uses the verb stem unless the verb stem ends with an "i" or an "8" in which case the concluding vowel becomes an "o" or an "a" respectively.

Commands are formed by the you/I form of the present tense.

Morphology

REFERENCES

http://www.cowasuck.org/language/language.cfm

http://www.native-languages.org/abenaki.htm

http://www.answers.com/abenaki&r=67

Information About

Eastern Abenaki