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