Language
Penobscot people historically spoke a dialect of Eastern Abenaki, an Algonquian language. It is very similar to the languages of the other members of the Wabanaki Confederacy. Currently, there are no fluent speakers and the last Penobscot speaker of Eastern Abenaki died in the 1990s. There is a dictionary, and the elementary school and the Boys and Girls Club on Indian Island are making an effort to reintroduce the language by teaching it to the children.
The Penobscot language uses a modified Roman alphabet with distinct characters used for making sounds that do not exist in the Roman alphabet.
Read more about this topic: Penobscot People
Famous quotes containing the word language:
“A president, however, must stand somewhat apart, as all great presidents have known instinctively. Then the language which has the power to survive its own utterance is the most likely to move those to whom it is immediately spoken.”
—J.R. Pole (b. 1922)
“Our goal as a parent is to give life to our children’s learning—to instruct, to teach, to help them develop self-discipline—an ordering of the self from the inside, not imposition from the outside. Any technique that does not give life to a child’s learning and leave a child’s dignity intact cannot be called discipline—it is punishment, no matter what language it is clothed in.”
—Barbara Coloroso (20th century)
“the communication
Of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)