| Quiripi | |
| Also Known As: | Wampano |
| Extinct: | ca. 1900 |
| Familycolor: | Algic |
| Fam1: | Algic |
| Fam2: | Algonquian |
| Fam3: | Eastern Algonquian |
| Iso3: | qyp |
| Glotto: | wamp1250 |
| Glottorefname: | Wampano |
| Map: | Tribal_Territories_Southern_New_England.png |
| Mapcaption: | The location of the Paugussett, Tunxis, Podunk, Quinnipiac, Mattabesic (Wangunk), Unquachog and their neighbors, c. 1600 |
Quiripi (pronounced,[1] also known as Mattabesic,[2] Quiripi-Unquachog, Quiripi-Naugatuck, and Wampano) was an Algonquian language formerly spoken by the indigenous people of southwestern Connecticut and central Long Island,[3] [4] including the Quinnipiac, Unquachog, Mattabessett (Wangunk), Podunk, Tunxis, and Paugussett (subgroups Naugatuck, Potatuck, Weantinock). It has been effectively extinct since the end of the 19th century,[5] although Frank T. Siebert, Jr., was able to record a few Unquachog words from an elderly woman in 1932.[6]
Quiripi is considered to have been a member of the Eastern Algonquian branch of the Algonquian language family.[7] [8] It shared a number of linguistic features with the other Algonquian languages of southern New England, such as Massachusett and Mohegan-Pequot, including the shifting of Proto-Eastern Algonquian *pronounced as //aː// and *pronounced as //eː// to pronounced as //ãː// and pronounced as //aː//, respectively, and the palatalization of earlier *pronounced as //k// before certain front vowels.[9] [10] There appear to have been two major dialects of Quiripi: an "insular" dialect spoken on Long Island by the Unquachog and a "mainland" dialect spoken by the other groups in Connecticut, principally the Quinnipiac.[11] [12]
Quiripi is very poorly attested,[13] though some sources do exist. One of the earliest Quiripi vocabularies was a 67-page bilingual catechism compiled in 1658 by Abraham Pierson, the elder, during his ministry at Branford, Connecticut,[14] which remains the chief source of modern conclusions about Quiripi. Unfortunately, the catechism was "poorly translated" by Pierson, containing an "unidiomatic, non-Algonquian sentence structure."[15] It also displays signs of dialect mixture.[16] Other sources of information on the language include a vocabulary collected by the Rev. Ezra Stiles in the late 1700s[17] and a 202-word Unquachog vocabulary recorded by Thomas Jefferson in 1791, though the Jefferson vocabulary also shows clear signs of dialect mixture and "external influences."[18] Additionally, three early hymns written circa 1740 at the Moravian Shekomeko mission near Kent, Connecticut, have been translated by Carl Masthay.[19]
Linguist Blair Rudes attempted to reconstitute the phonology of Quiripi, using the extant documentation, comparison with related Algonquian languages, as "reconstructing forward" from Proto-Algonquian.[20] In Rudes' analysis, Quiripi contained the following consonant phonemes:[21]
| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | pronounced as /p/ | pronounced as /t/ | pronounced as /tʃ/ | pronounced as /k/ | ||
| Fricative | pronounced as /s/ | (pronounced as /ʃ/) | pronounced as /h/ | |||
| Nasal | pronounced as /m/ | pronounced as /n/ | ||||
| Rhotic | pronounced as /r/ | |||||
| Semivowel | pronounced as /w/ | pronounced as /j/ |
Quiripi's vowel system as reconstituted by Rudes was similar to that of the other Southern New England Algonquian languages. It consisted of two short vowels pronounced as //a// and pronounced as //ə//, and four long vowels pronounced as //aː//, pronounced as //iː//, pronounced as //uː//, and pronounced as //ʌ̃//.