MultiTree:

Name: Western Abenaki Type: Language Alternate Names: Abenaki (Western); Abnaki (Western); Abnaki, Western; Abenaki; Abenaqui; St. Francis; Abnaki; St Francis Spoken in: Canada, USA Number of speakers: 5 (2006 P. Tamburro). Some L1 speakers only passively retain the language and (or) are semi fluent. Ethnic population: 1,800 including Eastern Abnaki in USA (1982 SIL) (Ethnologue) Number of speakers: 20 (World Oral Literature Project) Code: abe Code Standard: ISO 639-3 Documentation: SIL Families: Algic (Algonquian-Wiyot-Yurok, Algonquian-Ritwan) Parent Subgroup: Abenakian; Abenaki; Abenaki-Penobscot; Abnaki (abnk) Brief Description: "Western Abenaki was spoken in New Hampshire and adjacent areas of Vermont. The largest modern community is in Quebec, at the Odanak Reserve on the St. François River, where a handful of elderly fluent speakers survive. In addition about 2,000 people of Western Abenaki descent live in Vermont around the northern end of Lake Champlain. Attempts are underway there to revive the language and teach it in the Vermont school system. Western Abenaki was extensively documented by a series of village schoolmasters from the Odanak community in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, including Joseph Laurent, and by Gordon Day, who published in dictionary." Victor Golla, Atlas of the World's Languages 2007 pg. 25

Endangerment Status

---

UNESCO Status: Extinct Ethnologue Status: Nearly Extinct Sutherland's Red List: Critically Endangered