Loup languages
language group
Loup is a term which refers to the Algonquian language varieties spoken in colonial New England as attested in the manuscripts of mid-eighteenth century French missionaries. Loup A was attested in a notebook titled Mots loups (literally translating to 'wolf words'), compiled by Jean-Claude Mathevet, a priest who worked among Algonquian peoples, composing of 124 pages. Loup ('Wolf') was a French colonial ethnographic term, and usage was inconsistent. In modern literature, Loup A refers to the varieties described by Mathevet, and Loup B refers to those described by François-Auguste Magon de Terlaye.
Classification
Linguist Ives Goddard identified three distinct language varieties each attested in the Loup A and Loup B manuscripts. The languages of Loup A are referred to as Loup 1, Loup 2, and Loup 3; the languages of Loup B are referred to as Loup 4, Loup 5, and Loup 6. According to Goddard, Loup 3 and Loup 4 are the same language.
On the basis of morphophonological comparisons with other Algonquian languages and ethnogeographic context, Goddard identifies the five Loup languages with particular bands of the Pocumtuck Confederacy:
Nipmuck (Loup 1)
Norwottuck (Loup 2)
Pocumtuck (Loup 3 and 4)
Woronoco (Loup 5)
Pojassick (Loup 6)
Phonology
The phonology of Loup A (Nipmuck), reconstructed by Gustafson 2000:
The vowel sounds likely have the same phonetic quality as other southern New England Algonquian languages. The short vowels /i o e a/ may represent the sounds as [ɪ], [ʊ], [ɛ, ə], and [ʌ], while the long vowels /iː/, /oː/, and /ã/ correspond to /i/, /o/, and /ã/.
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