Nottoway language

Nottoway
Native to United States
Region Virginia
Ethnicity Nottoway people
Extinct ca. 1858
Iroquoian
  • Northern

    • Lake Iroquoian
      • Tuscarora–Nottoway
        • Nottoway
Language codes
ISO 639-3 Either:
ntw  Nottoway
nwy  Nottoway-Meherrin
Linguist list
nwy Nottoway-Meherrin
Glottolog nott1246  (Nottoway)[1]
mehe1242  (Meherrin)[2]

Nottoway, also called Cheroenhaka, is an extinct Iroquoian language of the Nottoway people, formerly based in present-day Virginia. They are undertaking work for language revival. [3] Nottoway is related to Tuscarora. In the 21st century, two tribes of Nottoway are active in Virginia and officially recognized by the state; other Nottoway descendants live in Wisconsin and Canada, where some of their ancestors fled in the 18th century. The language, however, has been almost entirely lost, known only from a few wordlists jotted down by colonists 200 years ago.[4]

The vocabulary and /or tongue (Dar-sun-ke) of the Cheroenhaka (Nottoway) Indians is a compilation of lists and source materials dating back to March 4th, 1820. Former President Thomas Jefferson’s hand written letter to Peter S. DuPonceau, on July 7, 1820, states that the Cheroenhaka (Nottoway) Indian vocabulary was obtained on March 4th, 1820 from a woman by the name of Edie Turner, styled as their “Queen,” and that he had procured a copy of the vocabulary from John Woods, a former Professor of Mathematics at the College of William and Mary. Jefferson implies in his letter that, at the time the vocabulary was recorded, members of the Cheroenhaka (Nottoway) Indian Tribe, Southampton County Virginia, were still living on 7,000 acres of tribal reservation land west of the Nottoway River and two miles from Jerusalem [Courtland…WDB].[5]

References

  1. Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Nottoway". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
  2. Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Meherrin". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
  3. "Nottoway". Ethnologue. 2009. Retrieved January 18, 2013.
  4. "Nottoway Language". Native Languages of the Americas Site. 2009. Retrieved January 18, 2013.
  5. "Cheroenhaka Language". Cheroenhaka (Nottoway) Indian Tribe. 2007. Retrieved January 18, 2013.


This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Tuesday, November 10, 2015. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.