Language
Historically, the Pequot spoke a dialect of the Mohegan-Pequot language, an Eastern Algonquian language. After the Treaty of Hartford concluded the Pequot War, the colonists made speaking the language a capital offense, and it became largely extinct. The Pequot from both the Eastern Pequot Tribal Nation and Mashantucket Pequot speak English as their primary language.
The Mashantucket Pequot are undertaking aggressive efforts to revive the language through careful analysis of historical documents containing Pequot words and comparison with extant closely related languages. So far they have reclaimed over 1,000 words, though that is a small fraction of what would be necessary for a functional language. The Mashantucket Pequot have begun offering language classes with the help of the Mashpee Wampanoag. The latter recently initiated the Wôpanâak Language Reclamation Project. The southern New England Native communities who are participants in the Wôpanâak Language Reclamation Project are Mashpee Wampanoag, Aquinnah Wampanoag, Herring Pond Wampanoag, and most recently, Mashantucket Pequot.
Read more about this topic: Pequot People
Famous quotes containing the word language:
“If fancy then
Unequal fails beneath the pleasing task,
Ah, what shall language do?”
—James Thomson (1700–1748)
“Language is a skin: I rub my language against the other. It is as if I had words instead of fingers, or fingers at the tip of my words. My language trembles with desire.”
—Roland Barthes (1915–1980)
“One who speaks a foreign language just a little takes more pleasure in it than one who speaks it well. Enjoyment belongs to those who know things halfway.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)