Quiripi language

Quiripi
Native to	United States
Native speakers	extinct
Language family	Algic Algonquian Eastern Algonquian Quiripi
Language codes
ISO 639-3	qyp

Quiripi is the name of a Native American language (also known as the Proto Eastern Algonquian – Archaic (PEA-A) R-Dialect), spoken by the Quinnipiac - the indigenous people of southwestern Connecticut.

One of the earliest Quiripi vocabularies was compiled by Rev. Abraham Pierson in 1658, during his ministry at Branford, Connecticut. His work consisted of a 67-page bi-lingual collection of indigenous words. In 1997, Blair A. Rudes identified the dialect as Wampano (Quiripi). He recognized that the language had been spoken by indigenous people all “[a]long Long Island Sound … from the Connecticut River … to at least as far as Norwalk … possibly up to the Hudson in the west, and included a portion of land in present-day New York State … [as well as] south central and western Long Island.”

Quiripi/Wampano words have been preserved through deeds and place names and through individual efforts. In 1791, President Thomas Jefferson preserved a 202-word vocabulary from Long Island. Three early hymns written circa 1740 in the r-dialect (at the Moravian Shekomeko mission near Kent, Connecticut) have been translated by Carl Masthay. In 1787, Ezra Stiles recorded a 44-word Quinnipiac word list from a woman named Sarah Maweeh (Mauwee) at Nau-ka-tungk (Naugatuck), who was born at East Haven, Connecticut.

The Algonquian language family

The Indigenous Tribal Nations of North America spoke 150 language dialects in USA/Canada, with 300 dialects in Mexico and 1,000 dialects throughout South America. In the USA and Canada, all but about 60 are endangered.

These indigenous dialects were grouped into seven major linguistic super-families, called phyla. The largest of the Native American phyla in the USA/Canada is the Algonquian linguistic-cultural family. According to glottochronology, the Algonquian language family is thousands of years old and once covered one-third of the USA/Canada.

The Algonquian family is divided into four major regional divisions:

1. the Northern Region (Canada, Labrador and Upper Great Lakes), where it has its roots;
2. the Central Region (Lower Great Lakes);
3. the Western Region (Rocky Mountain Divide), and
4. the Eastern Region (Atlantic Maritimes).

Indigenous people

The PEA-A (Proto Eastern Algonquian – Archaic) R-Dialect, known today as Wampano-Quiripi, was spoken by the Algonquian tribes of the Wappinger-Mattabesec Confederacy. These were the Renapi (pre-Lenape Munsee/Muncee and Quiripi/Quinnipiac).

The dialect was spoken throughout Connecticut, eastern New York, northern New Jersey, and western Long Island between AD 1 to AD 1500. After 1600 AD, it became pidginized into a lingua-franca, combining elements of the l, n, y, and r dialects into a limited vocabulary.

Several recorded vocabularies, word lists, prayers, etc. survived into the 20th century, yet the best source is the bi-lingual catechism compiled in 1658 by Reverend Abraham Pierson at the Quinnipiac’s Totoket sub-sachemship (Branford, Connecticut). This was actually a debate between Puritan ministers and Quinnipiac elders about converting to the Christian religion. This source was used by ACLI (Algonquian Confederacies Language Institute) to reconstruct, resurrect and revive the Wampano-Quiripi PEA-A R-Dialect.

Geographic region

The PEA-A R-Dialect was spoken throughout the eastern Maritimes (prior to 1500), from Nova Scotia to New Jersey, and from Long Island Sound to Illinois. Traces of this archaic dialect survive in numerous treaty-deeds and place-names.

As the Algonquian people migrated and came into contact with other languages and regional dialects, pidginized forms (lingua-francas) developed. Two dominant groups spoke the PEA-A R-Dialect, i.e., the Munsee-dominant Wappinger (or Wampano), and the Quinnipiac-dominant Quiripi (sometimes spelled Quiripey). Their combined sachemdoms formed a regional confederacy (Wappinger-Mattabesec) that covered all of Connecticut, eastern New York (below Esopus and the Shawangunk Mountains), northern New Jersey (Ramapo Mountains), and the western half of Long Island (Unquachog dominant).

Historical timeline

Dates	Important milestones in Quiripi R-dialect
AD 0 – 1100	Algonquian migrations in four successive waves spread PEA-A R-Dialect throughout NE woodlands.
1100 – 1500	PEA-A R-Dialect (Quiripi) spoken in Long Island Sound region, related dialects as far down as Virginia, as far north as Nova Scotia, and as far west as Illinois.
1500 – 1700	PEA-A Wampano Quiripi R-Dialect spoken in western Connecticut, eastern New York, northeastern New Jersey, as pidginized lingua franca.
1700 – 1800	Majority of Wampano Quiripi speakers die in epidemics, but several pockets of refugees, who spoke or kept the dialect alive, relocate in Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Quebec.
1800 – 1900	PEA-A lingua franca incorporates, as l, n, y, and r dialects merge with English.
1787	Ezra Stiles (YALE) records Quiripi word list from Sarah Mahwee, who was born at East Haven.
1791	Thomas Jefferson records word list of the Unquachog of Long Island.
1859	William Riechel records place names from Eunice Mahwee (Sarah’s granddaughter) at Kent, Connecticut, Schaghticoke Reservation
1881	James Hammond Trumbull publishes “Indian Place Names of Connecticut.”
1903	Frank G. Speck records a vocabulary from James Harris, who learned it from the Mahwee family.
1912	Mercy Nonsuch leaves the Nehantic Reservation at Old Lyme, Connecticut, and marries an Abenaki from St. Francis/Odanak, - Quiripi words and names attributed to her.
1950s – 1960s	Elizabeth Sakaskantawe Brown-Mahweeyeuh – 100-year-old maternal great grand aunt of Biwabiko Paddaquahas, - teaches 100 words or so of the pidginized/hybridized lingua franca to him at Branford, Connecticut.
1970s – 1980s	Biwabiko Paddaquahas learns Anishinaabemowin from his stepfather in Quebec and speaks six languages.
1980s – 1990s	Biwabiko Paddaquahas is mentored by Carl Masthay and other Algonquianists and learns all major Algonquian dialects. He compiles first rudimentary lexicon based on the 1658 catechism.
1997	Dr. Blair S. Rudes publishes his work entitled “Resurrecting Wampano (Quiripi) from the Dead: Phonological Preliminaries.”
2000	Algonquian Confederacies Language Institute (ACLI) is formed and launches three major publications, including 100-page Quiripi Language Guide.
2002	Carl Masthay publishes Kaskaskia Illinois-to-French Dictionary, a 12-year project that saved the central region’s R-Dialect from vanishing. [This r was probably a one-tap front r. C.M.]
2004	Quinnipiac Tribal Council (QTC) Literary Journal, The Dawnlander, publishes “Revisiting the Schaghticoke Deed of New Fairfield, CT,” establishing linguistic, genetic, and cultural relationship to Quinnipiac.
2006	QTC Press ACLI Series #4 publishes revised and expanded 295-page edition of the WAMPANO-QUIRIPI COMPLETE LANGUAGE GUIDE, establishing a comprehensive Lingua Franca for the PEA-A dialects, using the Quiripi dialect as its foundation, as it was originally.

Quiripi language resources

• The Complete Guide for Learning, Speaking, and Writing the PEA-A Wampano-Quiripi R-Dialect (Revised and Expanded Edition), QTC Press, ACLI SERIES #4, copyright ACQTC, Inc., 201 Church Street, Milltown, IN.
• Quiripi Lord’s Prayer

• Rev. Abraham Pierson’s 1658 bi-lingual catechism – Some Helps for the Indians, available as reprint in “ Language and Lore of the Long Island Indians,” by Gaynell Stone-Levine and Nancy Bonvillain, Eds., Readings in Long Island Archaeology and Ethnohistory, Volume IV, Suffolk County Archaeological Association, 1980, Stony Brook, NY.

• Blair A. Rudes, Ph.D. “Resurrecting Wampano (Quiripi) from the Dead: Phonological Preliminaries,” in Anthropological Linguistics, Vol. 39, No. 1, Spring 1997.

• “Indian Names of Places, etc. In and Around the Borders of Connecticut…” by James Hammond Trumbull (1881); 1974 reprint Archon Books, Hamden, CT.

• “Word List of Sarah Mahwee” compiled by Ezra Stiles 12-6-1787 (reprinted with many other Quiripi reprints in “Language and Lore of Long Island Indians…” supra).

• “The Naticoke and Conoy Indians with a Review of Linguistic Material from Manuscript and Living Sources: An Historical Study,” by Frank G. Speck, 46. Papers of the Historical Society of Delaware n.s. 1. Wilmington.

• Western Abenaki Dictionary by Gordon M. Day, Canadian Ethnology Service, Paper 129, 1995. Canadian Museum of Civilization.

• “New England Indian Place Names” in Rooted Like the Ash Trees, by Carl Masthay, Ph.D., 1987 Eagle Wing Press, Naugatuck, CT.

• Understanding Algonquian Indian Words (New England) Revised Edition, by Dr. Frank O’Brien and Julianne Jennings. 2000. Aquidneck Indian Council, Newport, RI.

Quiripi history and culture resources

• We the People Called Quinnipiac by Iron Thunderhorse, QTC PRESS, E-media e-book on CD-ROM (available at the ACQTC Trading Post).

• “Setting the Record Straight: A Linguistic-Ethnographic Study of the True Identity of the Quinnipiac/Quiripi/Renapi Nation Structure,” by Iron Thunderhorse (available online at ACQTC.com) - Copy available for study at the Quinnipiac Dawnland Museum & Library, Rte 77 at Rte 80, Guilford, CT.

• Quinnipiac Dawnland Museum & Library, Guilford, CT (see museum grand opening article at ACQTC.com).

• The Complete Guide for Learning, Speaking, and Writing the PEA-A Wampano-Quiripi R-Dialect (Revised and Expanded Edition), QTC Press, ACLI SERIES #4, copyright ACQTC, Inc., 201 Church Street, Milltown, IN. (Available on reserve, for Course QU201: Foundations of America, at the Arnold Bernhard Library at Quinnipiac University.)[1]

• For more resources, see the Quinnipiac article bibliography.