Unami
/uːˈnɑːmi/noun
A variety of the Lenape language, historically spoken by the Unami-speaking Delaware people of the mid-Atlantic region.
Did you know?Unami was one of the two major varieties of Delaware, alongside Munsee, and its documentation preserves vocabulary from a language family indigenous to eastern North America.
Etymological Timeline
Pre-contact period
Eastern Algonquian
*wəna·mi
“A reconstructed ancestral form associated with the Unami ethnolinguistic name; the exact analysis is debated.”
17th Century
Lenape
wəna·mi
“The name used for the southern or downriver Delaware people and their speech variety.”
17th–18th Century
Dutch and English
Unami
“A written form used by European colonists and missionaries for the southern Delaware language and its speakers.”
19th Century
English
Unami
“A recognized dialect name in linguistic and ethnographic writing.”
Modern English
English
Unami
“The name of a historically important Lenape language variety, now critically endangered or dormant in its traditional region.”
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