Arapahoan languages

Arapahoan
Araphoic
Geographic distribution	United States
Linguistic classification	Algic Algonquian Algonquian proper Arapahoan
Subdivisions	Arapaho–Gros Ventre Nawathinehena
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–
Glottolog	arap1273

The Arapahoan languages are a subgroup of the Plains group of Algonquian languages: Nawathinehena, Arapaho, and Gros Ventre.

Nawathinehena and Gros Ventre are extinct and Arapaho is endangered. ^{[1] [2]}

Besawunena, attested only from a word list collected by Kroeber, differs only slightly from Arapaho, but a few of its sound changes resemble those seen in Gros Ventre. It had speakers among the Northern Arapaho as recently as the late 1920s.^{[ citation needed ]}

Nawathinehena is also attested only from a word list collected by Kroeber, and was the most divergent language of the group.^{[ citation needed ] [3]}

Another reported Arapahoan variety is the extinct Ha'anahawunena, but there is no documentation of it.^{[ citation needed ]}

Classification

The Glottolog database classifies the Arapahoan languages as follows: ^[4]

• Arapahoic
  • Arapaho–Gros Ventre–Besawunena ^[5]
    • Arapaho
    • Gros Ventre
  • Nawathinehena

Notes

1. Lewis, M. Paul (ed.), 2009. Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Sixteenth edition. Dallas, Tex.: SIL International
2. Goddard 2001:74-76, 79
3. "Nawathinehena (Nawathi'nehena)". www.native-languages.org.
4. Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin; Bank, Sebastian (2023-06-10). "Glottolog 4.8 - Arapahoic". Glottolog . Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. doi: 10.5281/zenodo.7398962 . Archived from the original on 2023-08-24. Retrieved 2023-09-06.
5. Although Glottolog's name for this branch mentions Besawunena, it is not listed within either of the two langoids or in its own langoid.

References

• Goddard, Ives (2001). "The Algonquian Languages of the Plains." In Plains, Part I, ed. Raymond J. DeMallie. Vol. 13 of Handbook of North American Indians, ed. William C. Sturtevant. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, pp. 71–79.
• Marianne Mithun (1999). The Languages of Native North America. Cambridge Language Surveys. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

External links

• "Arapaho" at Native-languages.org
• "Gros Ventre" at Native-languages.org