Abenaki

See also: abenaki

English

Alternative forms

• (Eastern Abenaki) Abnaki
• (Western Abenaki) Wabnaki
• (Abenaki confederacy) Waponahki

Etymology

From French abénaquis, either from Montagnais ouabanākionek (“people of the eastern country”) or from the Western Abenaki autonym Wôbanaki (whence also the English calque Dawnland) or an Eastern Abenaki/Penobscot cognate of the same, from Algonquin. Ultimately a compound word meaning "people of the east" or "people of the dawn-land", from Proto-Algonquian *wa·panki (“dawn”) +‎ *askyi (“land”).

Pronunciation

• (US) IPA^(key): /ˌæbəˈnæ.ki/, /ˌɑbəˈnɑki/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

Noun

Abenaki (plural Abenakis or Abenaki)

1. A member of an Algonquian First People from northeastern North America, mainly Maine and Quebec. [early 18th century]
   • 2000, Jan Albers, Hands on the Land: A History of the Vermont Landscape, MIT Press, →ISBN, page 57:

     The Abenaki could also be brave warriors, but like most hunter-gatherers they probably did not go looking for trouble.

Translations

member of the Algonquian people

• German: Abenaki (de) m
• Marathi: आबेनाकी m (ābenākī)

Proper noun

Abenaki

1. A complex of Eastern Algonquian lects, originally spoken in what is now Maine, and Quebec, divided into Western Abenaki and Eastern Abenaki (Penobscot). [early 20th century]
2. (in particular) The Western Abenaki language.
   • 2019 July 20, Ka’nhehsí:io Deer, “Restoration of 18th-century choir book in Abenaki language may help revitalization efforts”, in CBC News‎^[1], archived from the original on 28 June 2022:

     The manuscript was written in 1750 by Father Joseph Aubery, a Jesuit priest from France assigned to the Saint-François-de-Sales Roman Catholic mission from 1709 until he died in 1756. It's one of the few and earliest documents available in Aln8ba8dwaw8gan, the Abenaki language.

Derived terms

• Abenakian
• abenakiite

Translations

language

• French: abénaqui (fr), abénaquis (fr) m
• German: Abenaki (de) n
• Marathi: आबेनाकी f (ābenākī)
• Swedish: abenakiska (sv) c

Adjective

Abenaki (not comparable)

1. Related or pertaining to the Abenaki people or language. [early 19th century]
   • 2008, Toni Morrison, A Mercy, Chatto & Windus, page 37:

     I am to walk left, westward on the Abenaki trail which I will know by the sapling bent into the earth with one sprout growing skyward.

Translations

related to the Abenaki people or language

• French: abénaqui (fr), abénaquis (fr) m
• German: abenakisch (rare)
• Marathi: आबेनाकी (ābenākī)
• Portuguese: abenaki

See also

• Wiktionary’s coverage of Abenaki terms

Further reading

• Ethnologue entry for Western Abenaki, abe ⁠
• Ethnologue entry for Eastern Abenaki, aaq ⁠ (Penobscot, extinct)

Anagrams

• ikebana, in a bake