LeSourd earned both a bachelor's degree and a Ph.D. in linguistics at MIT. He became fascinated with Algonquian languages after a class in the Mesquakie (Fox) language from Ives Goddard at Harvard soon after finishing his bachelor's degree. At the instigation of Karl Teeter and later Ken Hale, he spent time residing among the Maliseet and Passamaquoddy communities in Maine, United States and New Brunswick, Canada. He studied the language both academically, with expert Robert Leavitt of the Mi'kmaq - Maliseet Institute at the University of New Brunswick, and through study with a variety of native speakers. LeSourd, Leavitt, and native Passamaquoddy speaker David Francis, Sr. launched a Maliseet-Passamaquoddy to English dictionary project, which resulted in a published dictionary entitled Kolusuwakonol, about eight years after the project began. The project has continued since, including with funding by Industry Canada and the National Science Foundation, and has been made available online.
LeSourd has continued actively to research Maliseet-Passamaquoddy and a variety of other Algonquian languages.
The Algonquian languages are a subfamily of Indigenous American languages that include most languages in the Algic language family. The name of the Algonquian language family is distinguished from the orthographically similar Algonquin dialect of the Indigenous Ojibwe language (Chippewa), which is a senior member of the Algonquian language family. The term Algonquin has been suggested to derive from the Maliseet word elakómkwik, "they are our relatives/allies". A number of Algonquian languages are considered extinct languages by the modern linguistic definition.
The Abenaki are an Indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands of Canada and the United States. They are an Algonquian-speaking people and part of the Wabanaki Confederacy. The Eastern Abenaki language was predominantly spoken in Maine, while the Western Abenaki language was spoken in Quebec, Vermont, and New Hampshire.
The Mi'kmaq are a First Nations people of the Northeastern Woodlands, indigenous to the areas of Canada's Atlantic Provinces and the Gaspé Peninsula of Quebec as well as the northeastern region of Maine. The traditional national territory of the Mi'kmaq is named Miꞌkmaꞌki.
The Passamaquoddy are a Native American/First Nations people who live in northeastern North America. Their traditional homeland, Peskotomuhkatik, straddles the Canadian province of New Brunswick and the U.S. state of Maine in a region called Dawnland. They are one of the constituent nations of the Wabanaki Confederacy.
The Wəlastəkwewiyik, or Maliseet, are an Algonquian-speaking First Nation of the Wabanaki Confederacy. They are the indigenous people of the Wolastoq valley and its tributaries. Their territory extends across the current borders of New Brunswick and Quebec in Canada, and parts of Maine in the United States.
The Miꞌkmaq language, or Miꞌkmawiꞌsimk, is an Eastern Algonquian language spoken by nearly 11,000 Miꞌkmaq in Canada and the United States; the total ethnic Miꞌkmaq population is roughly 20,000. The native name of the language is Lnuismk, Miꞌkmawiꞌsimk or Miꞌkmwei. The word Miꞌkmaq is a plural word meaning 'my friends' ; the adjectival form is Miꞌkmaw.
The Algonquian are one of the most populous and widespread North American native language groups. Historically, the peoples were prominent along the Atlantic Coast and into the interior along the Saint Lawrence River and around the Great Lakes. This grouping consists of the peoples who speak Algonquian languages.
Montague Chamberlain was a Canadian-American businessman, naturalist, and ethnographer.
Indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands include Native American tribes and First Nation bands residing in or originating from a cultural area encompassing the northeastern and Midwest United States and southeastern Canada. It is part of a broader grouping known as the Eastern Woodlands. The Northeastern Woodlands is divided into three major areas: the Coastal, Saint Lawrence Lowlands, and Great Lakes-Riverine zones.
The Eastern Algonquian languages constitute a subgroup of the Algonquian languages. Prior to European contact, Eastern Algonquian consisted of at least 17 languages, whose speakers collectively occupied the Atlantic coast of North America and adjacent inland areas, from what are now the Maritimes of Canada to North Carolina. The available information about individual languages varies widely. Some are known only from one or two documents containing words and phrases collected by missionaries, explorers or settlers, and some documents contain fragmentary evidence about more than one language or dialect. Many of the Eastern Algonquian languages were greatly affected by colonization and dispossession. Miꞌkmaq and Malecite-Passamaquoddy have appreciable numbers of speakers, but Western Abenaki and Lenape (Delaware) are each reported to have fewer than 10 speakers after 2000.
The history of New Brunswick covers the period from the arrival of the Paleo-Indians thousands of years ago to the present day. Prior to European colonization, the lands encompassing present-day New Brunswick were inhabited for millennia by the several First Nations groups, most notably the Maliseet, Mi'kmaq, and the Passamaquoddy.
Sachems and sagamores are paramount chiefs among the Algonquians or other Native American tribes of northeastern North America, including the Iroquois. The two words are anglicizations of cognate terms from different Eastern Algonquian languages. The sagamore was a lesser chief elected by a single band, while the sachem was the head or representative elected by a tribe or group of bands. The positions are elective, not hereditary.
Karl van Duyn Teeter was an American linguist known especially for his work on the Algic languages.
The Wabanaki Confederacy is a North American First Nations and Native American confederation of four principal Eastern Algonquian nations: the Miꞌkmaq, Maliseet (Wolastoqey), Passamaquoddy (Peskotomahkati) and Penobscot. The Western Abenaki are also considered members, being a loose identity for a number of allied tribal peoples such as the Sokoki, Cowasuck, Missiquoi, and Arsigantegok, among others.
Maliseet-Passamaquoddy is an endangered Algonquian language spoken by the Maliseet and Passamaquoddy peoples along both sides of the border between Maine in the United States and New Brunswick, Canada. The language consists of two major dialects: Maliseet, which is mainly spoken in the Saint John River Valley in New Brunswick; and Passamaquoddy, spoken mostly in the St. Croix River Valley of eastern Maine. However, the two dialects differ only slightly, mainly in accent. The indigenous people widely spoke Maliseet-Passamaquoddy in these areas until around the post-World War II era when changes in the education system and increased marriage outside of the speech community caused a large decrease in the number of children who learned or regularly used the language. As a result, in both Canada and the U.S. today, there are only 600 speakers of both dialects, and most speakers are older adults. Although the majority of younger people cannot speak the language, there is growing interest in teaching the language in community classes and in some schools.
The Burying the Hatchet Ceremony happened in Nova Scotia on June 25, 1761 and was one of many such ceremonies where the Halifax Treaties were signed. The treaties ended a protracted period of warfare which had lasted more than 75 years and encompassed six wars between the Mi'kmaq people and the British. The Burying the Hatchet Ceremonies and the treaties that they commemorated created an enduring peace and a commitment to obey the rule of law.
The Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians of Maine is a federally recognized tribe of Maliseet, whose land is along the Meduxnekeag River in Maine. They are headquartered in Littleton, Maine, located in Aroostook County.
Madawaska Maliseet First Nation or St. Basile 10 band is one of six Wolastoqiyik or Maliseet Nations on the Saint John River in Canada. The Madawaska Maliseet First Nation (MMFN) territory is in Northern New Brunswick. The MMFN reserve is located 1.6 km east of Edmundston in the north-western region of New Brunswick. The band membership has 350 people. About 114 members of the MMFN live on the St. Basile no. 10 reserve. They are part of the Saint John River Valley Tribal Council. Family names include Bernard, Cimon, Francis, and Wallace.
The Peace and Friendship Treaties were a series of written documents that Britain signed between 1725 and 1779 with various Mi’kmaq, Wolastoqiyik (Maliseet), Abenaki, Penobscot, and Passamaquoddy peoples living in parts of what are now the Maritimes and Gaspé region in Canada and the northeastern United States. Primarily negotiated to reaffirm the peace after periods of war and to facilitate trade, these treaties remain in effect to this day.
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