by Sam Bell ‘24.5
Western Abenaki is an Eastern Algonquin language, and a part of the larger Algonquin language family, spoken by members of the Abenaki tribe. Before contact with European colonists, Western Abenaki was spoken primarily in the Lake Champlain area. It is an incredibly endangered language, considered by organizations such as UNESCO to be extinct (Reed et al). Currently, only a handful of people speak fluent Western Abenaki, while its sister language Eastern Abenaki currently has no living fluent speakers. Efforts made by Abenaki tribe members such as Jesse Bruchac, as well as programs run by Middlebury College and the University of Southern Maine, aim to preserve the Western Abenaki language.
The Algonquin languages spread across northeastern and central United States, through much of modern-day Canada and the New England coast. Pre-contact, there were approximately seventeen different Algonquin languages spread amongst three main regional/linguistic branches. Central Algonquin was located generally in eastern modern-day Quebec and the Great Lakes area. Plains Algonquin languages were found farther south, in the Kansas and Nebraska area. Eastern Algonquin languages, the branch that Western Abenaki is a part of, were found along the northeastern coast of North America.
Despite covering a large area of land, the Algonquin languages share many linguistic similarities. The Algonquin languages all have a similar syllable structure, and a mostly subject-object-verb sentence order. Western Abenaki is the most similar to Eastern Abenaki, with only a few small differences in phonology differentiating the two. Many Algonquin and Western Abenaki words are used in English, most of which describe North American flora and fauna that would have been unfamiliar to European colonists. Caribou, opossum, terrapin, moose, muskrat, raccoon, and more are all Algonquin loanwords in English. Several states’ names such as Massachusetts, Connecticut, Wisconsin, or Missouri are taken or adapted from Algonquin words. Most of these loanwords are not exact replications of the Algonquin words that they originated from, rather they are anglicized adaptations of them.
Western Abenaki does not have grammatical gender, such as how many Indo-European languages differentiate between male and female pronouns, adjectives and nouns. For instance, the English words he and she in English are translated as the same third person pronoun in Western Abenaki. Western Abenaki instead inflects for animacy vs nonanimacy. Things seen as living use different affixes and forms than those seen as non-living. There are several inflectional processes that differ between animate and inanimate nouns, much like how Romance languages such as French or Spanish differ between male and female (Western Abenaki Dictionary). Many of these features are shared amongst other Algonquin languages, both living and extinct.
Before European contact, Western Abenaki was spoken all throughout modern day Vermont, stretching all the way to the coast of Maine, but was centered around Lake Champlain. Dialects of Algonquin languages and Western Abenaki varied regionally, and their differences often flowed together geographically. Dialects were more similar the closer they were in physical proximity to each other. Someone speaking Western Abenaki would be able to understand someone speaking a similar dialect or Algonquin language in the Massachusetts area, but would have more trouble understanding someone speaking a dialect from the central plains. With the arrival of European settler colonists, many Abenaki had to learn European languages to trade and negotiate. For the Abenaki, most of them had to learn French, English, or both to interact with the colonists (Bruchac 11). During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, speakers of Western Abenaki began to dwindle. Besides a general decline in Abenaki population, children were also sent to boarding schools where speaking their native language was forbidden. A few fluent speakers survived to keep the language alive in the modern day. This was a very common fate for Indigenous languages, as the policy of the United States has historically been to deprive Native Americans of their languages and culture. While the United States government, for the most part, has stopped actively destroying Indigenous languages, it is not doing much to restore or revitalize these endangered languages. People with and without Abenaki heritage have been working in recent years to document, preserve, and revitalize the Western Abenaki language.
Jesse Bowman Bruchac is one of the most notable figures in the fight to preserve the Western Abenaki language. Bruchac, who is Nulhegan Abenaki, is one of the few fluent speakers of Western Abenaki left, and much of his work has focused on preserving the language and making it accessible to new learners. His family created the Ndakinna Education Center in New York, a program that runs camps, cultural events, and other programs (Jesse Bowman Bruchac). He has created a website, westernabenaki.com, with free audio and video lessons made by him and other speakers of the language. The website also has an affiliated YouTube channel and Facebook page. Bruchac has lectured on Western Abenaki and language preservation at Yale, Harvard, Princeton, and Dartmouth. He currently co-teaches a Western Abenaki language course at the University of Southern Maine with linguist Dr. Conn Quinn. He has written several bilingual books in English and Western Abenaki. Most recently, he worked with Middlebury College to develop and eventually teach a pilot program for an Abenaki Language school in the summer of 2020.
In January 2020, Middlebury College announced a pilot Abenaki Language School. Middlebury College President Laurie Patton said about the program, “We want to recognize and honor the people on whose land Middlebury is making its home” (“Middlebury Launches”). Middlebury College has a history of highly successful summer language schools for almost a dozen languages, from Arabic, to French, Spanish, Japanese and more. These immersive programs take place at the college during summer and are open to all ages and competencies. Patton first began to think about developing an Abenaki Language School when Jesse Bruchac performed with Chief Don Stevens and gave an invocation at Middlebury’s 2019 commencement ceremony (Kapp). Through the fall of 2019, she worked with Jesse Bruchac to develop a pilot version of an Abenaki Language School. While a typical language school teaches for 7-8 weeks, the pilot Abenaki program only lasted two weeks. The program was also offered free of charge. Like the other language schools, students were required to take a Language Pledge, to only speak in the taught language when at the school. They also planned to immerse the students in cultural events, including basket making.
However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Abenaki Language School had to alter its programming to an online platform. Response to the program was very immediate, Bruchac remarking that, “Within the first day we had many more applicants than spots to fill” (Kapp). The program planned to enroll approximately twenty students, and twenty-three students were enrolled in the program. Twenty were registered members of Abenaki tribes, and all twenty-three had some former experience with the language. Speakers with the strongest competence in the language were accepted into the program (Kapp). The ages of students ranged from as young as eighteen, to as old as seventy-five. They met for six hours a day, three two-hour sessions, for two weeks from June 30 to July 14. Jesse Bruchac and Dr. Conn Quinn of the University of Southern Maine taught the course in tandem. The course culminated in a live-streamed presentation at the end of the session, where the students shared personal works in Western Abenaki. The course is planned to run again next summer in 2021, although it has not yet been confirmed if it will be free of charge again. While preference will be given to applicants who are Abenaki, as it is their language community, the program is open to all. Bruchac hopes that the Language School can continue to grow and expand. With selecting the strongest applicants for the pilot program, Bruchac hopes that they will eventually become teachers of Western Abenaki themselves (Kapp). While specific details on the 2021 program have not been released, it is expected that the program will expand and evolve.
The Middlebury Abenaki Language school gave many heritage speakers of Abenaki a chance to reconnect with not just their language, but their culture as a whole. Language is more than just vocabulary and grammar; it is also the ideas and practices that go along with it. Just as with other Middlebury Language Schools, the Abenaki School participated in traditional Abenaki practices. The most notable was a two-day basket weaving workshop, led by Kerry and Aaron Wood. The mother and son duo taught the workshop in Abenaki, further solidifying the bond between language education and cultural immersion. In an interview with Vermont Public Radio, Bruchac expressed “The language has always been more than just a language to me, I don’t try and speak Abenaki to have new words, I try and speak Abenaki to understand the culture and my connection to it” (Reed et al). In the same interview, when asked about how many fluent speakers of Western Abenaki there were, Bruchac explained how many Abenaki might not know the whole language, but they often know the words and phrases related to how they connect to their culture. As an example, he mentioned how some families of basket weavers were very fluent in vocabulary and words concerning basket weaving, but not as much with other parts of Western Abenaki.
The colonization of the northeast and the forced assimilation of Abenaki nearly destroyed the Western Abenaki language. Language is an essential part of any culture. It carries within it the nuances, customs, history and world view of the culture that speaks it. For example, as there is a lack of gendered pronouns in Western Abenaki, Abenaki also did not have the same strictly enforced gender roles that Western societies often had. Whoever was best at basket weaving would make baskets, and whoever was best at hunting would hunt, regardless of gender. A nonbinary view of gender is reflected this lack of gendered third person pronouns (Longtoe Sheehan). The inflections for animacy and nonanimacy echo the Abenaki concept of animism, everything having a soul and being connected. Westernabenaki.com gives several interesting examples of objects considered to be animate or inanimate. For example, a living tree is animate, but a cut down tree is inanimate. Items that are important for daily life are also considered animate, such as “snowshoes, toboggans and tobacco” (Western Abenaki Dictionary). This classification affects the very forms of these words, thus giving great insight into what was seen as living or nonliving. The lack of gendered pronouns and distinction between animacy and nonanimacy are just two examples of how the Western Abenaki language carries important cultural information. How they viewed fundamental aspects of the world can be seen through how they classify their nouns, adjectives, and more.
By attempting to erase the Western Abenaki language, through genocide, forced assimilation and boarding schools, colonists hoped to deprive the Abenaki of their culture. However, they were not successful. There are still speakers of Western Abenaki today, and there are efforts by both indigenous and nonindigenous organizations to preserve it. The preservation of the language ensures the preservation of not only Abenaki culture, but other Indigenous cultures as well. During the colonization of the northeast, tribes were driven off their lands and forced to join new tribes. This absorption meant that Algonquin languages often combined and fused with each other (Western Abenaki Dictionary). This means that modern Western Abenaki contains linguistic features of now extinct Algonquin languages. Preserving Western Abenaki therefore helps preserve parts of several other languages that have been lost.
Accessibility is one of the most effective strategies for preserving endangered languages such as Western Abenaki. For example, westernabenaki.com and Jesse Bruchac’s YouTube tutorials are free and available to anyone with an internet connection. Also, while most Middlebury language schools can cost several thousand dollars per session, the Abenaki Language school was free of charge. While the Western Abenaki course at the University of Southern Maine requires enrollment at the college, it still brings the language into an academic setting. By freely distributing resources, or not hiding them behind massive paywalls, these organizations ensure that anyone and everyone can participate in the preservation of this language. In Linda Tuhiwai Smith’s book Decolonizing Methodologies, she describes how “regeneration” might be a better term to describe the act of preserving dying languages (149). She asserts that it is not the language itself that is dying, rather, the generations that spoke it are dying, and that “the new generations need to make the language live by speaking it” (Tuhiwai Smith 149). This is reflected in Jesse Bruchac’s work to teach others so they can be fluent in Western Abenaki and in turn, train even more fluent speakers. The strongest speakers were accepted into the pilot Abenaki Language School, in hopes that they would eventually become teachers themselves. These preservation efforts are teaching the language to a new generation of speakers and ensuring its survival with every new learner and teacher. From westernabenaki.com, to the Middlebury Abenaki Language School, to the Western Abenaki course taught at the University of Southern Maine, increased study and education of the language helps to protect it from further erasure. The Abenaki language is an important part of their culture and making it accessible allows it to be reclaimed and celebrated.
Bibliography
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Bruchac, Joseph. “Joseph Elie Joubert: Language Keeper.” Voices: The Journal of New York Folklore, vol. 45, no. 1/2, Spring/Summer 2019, pp. 11–12.
Jesse Bowman Bruchac. http://jbruchac.com/. Accessed 22 Apr. 2021.
Kapp, Caroline. “School of Abenaki Joins Language Schools As a Pilot Program.” The Middlebury Campus, Middlebury College, middleburycampus.com/47957/news/school-of-abenaki-joins-language-schools-as-a-pilot-program/
Longtoe Sheehan, Vera. “Vermont Abenaki Artists Association” First Year Seminar 1570A: Native Presence and Performance, 9 March 2021, Middlebury College, Middlebury, VT. Guest Class Speaker.
McLaughlin, Catherine. “School of Abenaki Pilots First Summer Remotely.” The Middlebury Campus, https://middleburycampus.com/52123/news/school-of-abenaki-pilots-first-summer-remotely/. Accessed 22 Apr. 2021.
“Middlebury Launches Pilot Abenaki Language School.” Middlebury, Middlebury College.10 Jan. 2020, http://www.middlebury.edu/newsroom/archive/2020-news/node/642425.
Reed, Elodie, and Jane Lindholm. “’Kwawaldam?’: Middlebury Language Schools To Offer Abenaki Pilot Program.” Vermont Public Radio, Vermont Public Radio, www.vpr.org/post/kwawaldam-middlebury-language-schools-offer-abenaki-pilot-program#stream/0. Accessed 22 Apr. 2021.
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