The Mi'kmaq language ( ), or , is an Eastern Algonquian language spoken by nearly 11,000 Mi'kmaq in Canada and the United States; the total ethnic Mi'kmaq population is roughly 20,000. The native name of the language is , or (in some dialects). The word is a plural word meaning 'my friends' (singular ); the adjectival form is .
Phonology
The phonemic inventory of Mi'kmaq is shown below.
Vowels
Consonants
The sounds of Mi'kmaq can be divided into two groups: obstruents () and sonorants ( and all vowels).
The obstruents have a wide variety of pronunciations. When they are located word-initially or next to another obstruent, they are voiceless . However, when they are located between sonorants, they are voiced, and appear as . When the plosives and affricate are located word-finally, they may be aspirated and appear as . An example of each kind of pronunciation is given below.
Miꞌkmaq distinguishes between long and short vowels and consonants, the latter indicated in Listuguj by doubling the consonant. Beyond expanding in length, long consonants add a schwa when they precede other consonants. For instance, compare , written in Listuguj as ('flow away') with , written in Listuguj as ('stick into'); or, , written in Listuguj as ('hoist'), with , written in Listuguj as ('loud').
Listuguj orthography occasionally begins words with consonant clusters, as in ('ocean') and ('ice'). However, such clusters are pronounced over separate syllables, with a schwa preceding the cluster; for instance, is pronounced while is pronounced . On the other hand, word-final clusters, such as in ('instigate') are pronounced over a single syllable: compare the pronunciation of , , with ('taste'), .
Grammar
Syntax
Miꞌkmaq uses free word order, based on emphasis rather than a traditionally fixed order of subjects, objects and verbs. For instance, the sentence "I saw a moose standing right there on the hill" could be stated "" (I saw him/there/on the hill/right-there/a moose/he was standing) or "" (I saw him/there/a moose/on the hill/right-there/he was standing); the latter sentence puts emphasis on the moose by placing ('moose') earlier in the utterance. Miꞌkmaq, as a polysynthetic language, has verbs which usually contain the sentence's subject and object: for instance, the aforementioned translates to 'I saw him'.
While it is thus difficult to classify Miꞌkmaq under traditional word order categories such as SVO or SOV, a more fixed aspect in the language comes in the morphology of its verbs. Certain areas of internal morphology of verbs in Miꞌkmaq have regular placement: for instance, when the aspect of a verb is included, it appears as the first prefix, while the negative marker always appears directly after the verb root. An example for both of these instances can be seen in the Miꞌkmaq verb (), translated as 'they cannot get out': the prefix marks the verb as being in the completive aspect, whereas the negative marker, w, appears directly after the verb root ('the two move'). However, these solidly placed elements of verbs are paired with markers that can appear throughout the word, depending again on emphasis; animacy in particular can appear fluidly throughout verbs. In short, while a few specific aspects of Miꞌkmaq can be predicted, its syntax in general is largely free and dependent on context.
Mi'kmaq verbs are also marked for tense.
Nouns
Nouns in Mi'kmaq are either animate or inanimate. This is a common feature among Algonquian languages. The verbs change depending on the noun's animacy. For example:
– 'I see (inanimate noun)'
– 'I see (animate noun)'
Writing system
Miꞌkmaq is written using a number of Latin alphabets based on ones devised by missionaries in the 19th century. Previously, the language was written in Miꞌkmaq hieroglyphic writing, a script of partially native origin. The Francis-Smith orthography used here was developed in 1974 and was adopted as the official orthography of the Míkmaq Nation in 1980. It is the most widely used orthography and is that used by Nova Scotian Mikmaq and by the Míkmaq Grand Council. It is quite similar to the "Lexicon" orthography, differing from it only in its use of the straight apostrophe or acute accent instead of the colon to mark vowel length.
When the Francis-Smith orthography was first developed, the straight apostrophe (often called a "tick") was the designated symbol for vowel length, but since software applications incorrectly autocorrected the tick to a curly apostrophe, a secondary means of indicating vowel length was formally accepted, the acute accent. The barred-i for schwa is sometimes replaced by the more common circumflex-i .