The Mi'kmaq language (spelled and pronounced Micmac historically and now often Migmaw or Mikmaw in English, and Míkmaq, Míkmaw or Mìgmao in Mi'kmaq) is an Eastern Algonquian language spoken by nearly 11,000 Mi'kmaq in Canada and the United States out of a total ethnic Mi'kmaq population of roughly 20,000. The word Mi'kmaq is a plural word meaning 'my friends' (singular Míkm); the adjectival form is Míkmaw. The language's native name is Lnuismk, Míkmawísimk or Míkmwei (in some dialects).
Read more about Mi'kmaq Language: Syntax, Writing System, Language History and Related Languages, Placenames From Mi'kmaq
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“What distinguished man from animals was the human capacity for symbolic thought, the capacity which was inseparable from the development of language in which words were not mere signals, but signifiers of something other than themselves. Yet the first symbols were animals. What distinguished men from animals was born of their relationship with them.”
—John Berger (b. 1926)