Arapahoan languages explained

Arapahoan
Also Known As:	Araphoic
Region:	United States
Familycolor:	Algic
Fam1:	Algic
Fam2:	Algonquian
Fam3:	Algonquian proper
Child1:	Arapaho–Gros Ventre
Child2:	Nawathinehena
Glotto:	arap1273
Glottorefname:	Arapahoic

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

Nawathinehena is extinct and Arapaho and Gros Ventre are both 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.

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

Another reported Arapahoan variety is the extinct Ha'anahawunena, but there is no documentation of it.

Classification

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

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

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

Notes and References

1. Lewis, M. Paul (ed.), 2009. Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Sixteenth edition. Dallas, Tex.: SIL International
2. Goddard 2001:74-76, 79
3. Web site: Nawathinehena (Nawathi'nehena) . www.native-languages.org.
4. Web site: Glottolog 4.8 - Arapahoic . 2023-06-10 . 2023-09-06 . . Hammarström . Harald . https://web.archive.org/web/20230824191919/https://glottolog.org/resource/languoid/id/arap1273 . 2023-08-24 . live . . Harald Hammarström . Forkel . Robert . . 10.5281/zenodo.7398962 . Haspelmath . Martin . Martin Haspelmath . Bank . Sebastian . free.
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.