The Nansemond language is an extinct language that was spoken by the Nansemond people of Virginia, United States.
The Nansemond language may have been a member of the Algonquian language family, similar to that of many other Atlantic coastal tribes. However, only six words have been preserved, which are not enough to identify and classify it.
Word list The six Nansemond words, which may have been corrupted in memory by the time they were written down in 1901, are:A Vocabulary of Powhatan, compiled by Captain John Smith, with two word-lists of Pamunkey and Nansemond from other sources. Evolution Publishing, 1997.
{| class="wikitable sortable" ! English !! Nansemond |- | one || nĭkătwĭn |- | two || näkătwĭn |- | three || nikwásăti |- | four || toisíaw’ |- | five || mishä́naw |- | dog | marímo |} There are a few Nansemond words that were historically documented by John Smith, including:
fishing point Nansemond ??? Mattanock ??? Chuckatuck ??? Weyhohomo non-Christian/Nansemond Pochick
Lexical comparison Below is a comparison of Nansemond words and selected proto-languages from Zamponi (2024).
{| class="wikitable sortable" ! language !! one !! two !! three !! four !! five !! dog |- | Nansemond || nĭkătwĭn || näkătwĭn || nikwásăti || toisíaw’ || mishäʹnaw || marímo |- | Proto-AlgonquianHewson, John. 1993. A computer-generated dictionary of Proto-Algonquian. Hull: Canadian Museum of Civilization. || *nekwetwi || *nyi·šwi || *neʔθwi || *nye·wi || *nya·θanwi, pale·neθkwi || *aθemwa |- | Proto-Iroquoian (PI)/Proto-Northern Iroquoian (PNI)Julian, Charles. 2010. A history of the Iroquoian languages. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Ph.D. dissertation. || *õskat (PNI) || *tekniːh (PNI) || *ahsẽh (PNI) || *kajeɹi (PNI) || *hwihsk (PI) || *kiːɹ (PI) |- | Proto-SiouanRankin, Robert L., Richard T. Carter, A. Wesley Jones, John E. Koontz, David S. Rood & Iren Hartmann (eds.). 2015. Comparative Siouan dictionary. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. Accessed 31 January 2023. || *rų·sa || *rų́·pa || *rá·wrį || *tó·pa || *kiSų́· || *wašų́ke/*wišų́·ke
See also Pamunkey language
References