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| Loup | |
|---|---|
| Nipmuck | |
| Pronunciation | [lu]loo |
| Native to | United States |
| Region | Massachusetts,Connecticut |
| Ethnicity | Nipmuck |
| Extinct | 18th century |
| transcribed withLatin script | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | Either:xlo – Loup Axlb – Loup B |
xlo Loup A | |
xlb Loup B | |
| Glottolog | loup1243 Nipmuckloup1245 Loup B |
Loup is a term which refers to theAlgonquian language varieties spoken in colonialNew England as attested in the manuscripts of mid-eighteenth century French missionaries.[1] It was attested in a notebook titledMots loups (literally translating to 'wolf words'), compiled by Jean-Claude Mathevet, a priest who worked among Algonquian peoples, composing of 124 pages.[2]Loup ('Wolf') was aFrench colonial ethnographic term, and usage was inconsistent. In modern literature,Loup A refers to the varieties described by Mathevet, andLoup B refers to those described by François-Auguste Magon de Terlaye.[1]
LinguistIves Goddard identified three distinct language varieties each attested in the Loup A and Loup B manuscripts. The languages of Loup A are referred to as Loup 1, Loup 2, and Loup 3; the languages of Loup B are referred to as Loup 4, Loup 5, and Loup 6. According to Goddard, Loup 3 and Loup 4 are the same language.[1]
On the basis of morphophonological comparisons with other Algonquian languages and ethnogeographic context, Goddard identifies the five Loup languages with particular bands of thePocumtuck Confederacy:[1]
The phonology of Loup A (Nipmuck),[1] reconstructed by Gustafson 2000:
| Bilabial | Alveolar | Palatal/ Postalveolar | Velar | Glottal | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| plain | pal. | plain | lab. | ||||
| Nasal | m | n | |||||
| Plosive | p | t | tʲ | k | (kʷ) | ||
| Affricate | tʃ | ||||||
| Fricative | s | h | |||||
| Lateral | l | ||||||
| Approximant | w | j | |||||
| Front | Back | |
|---|---|---|
| Close | i,iː | u |
| Mid | e | o,oː |
| Open | a,aː,ã | |
The vowel sounds likely have the same phonetic quality as other southern New England Algonquian languages. The short vowels/ioea/ may represent the sounds as[ɪ],[ʊ],[ɛ,ə], and[ʌ], while the long vowels/iː/,/oː/, and/ã/ correspond to/i/,/o/, and/ã/.[2][3]