The Weirdest Thing I Learned Reading Fiction #LongandShortReviews #BlogChallenge

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

This week's topic: The Weirdest Thing I Learned Reading Fiction

I may not think this is weird, but others might. I learned to speak a Native American Indian language from a historical romance novel. Well, not completely! But it started the hunger for knowledge that compelled me to check out libraries and historical societies where I researched about the languages and cultures of the Native people in my area.

I'm not certain which novel I read that began my obsession with learning Native languages, but I've been interested in Native American Indians since I was a kid. As a teenager, I began reading romances and devoured many of historical romances set during the American Colonial days, the French and Indian Wars and the American Revolution. This is still one of my favorite time periods to read and research!

While I still read any romance featuring a Native American Indian hero or heroine, I did gravitate toward the Eastern Tribes being that I live in Pennsylvania and was immensely interested in the history of my own backyard. Plus, I learned from my grandmother at some point that both she and my grandfather had Lenape and Cherokee ancestors. My research soon turned into a family history project.

If memory serves, when I was a teenager, I wrote a fan letter to Judith E. French asking her about the research she did on the Native cultures. She was nice enough to respond with some reading suggestions!

Here's a little about what I learned:

The Lenape people, also known as the Delaware Indians, inhabited most of Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey and lower New York. They became known as Delaware Indians because of those members living along the Delaware river; a river named after Lord de la Warr in the 17th century.

The language of the Lenape was a form of Algonquian. The Algonquian language family consists of around 30 languages including those used by Mi'kmaq, Abenaki, Mahican, Powhatan, Nanticoke, and also among the Cree, Cheyenne, Blackfoot, Ojibwa, Shawnee and others.

Within the Lenape sub-tribes there were three distinct dialects called Munsee, Unami and Unalactigo. By the year 1700, Unalactigo had been greatly absorbed by the Unami. In many ways, Munsee had become a separate tribe, closely related to the Mahican people.

In 1600, the Lenape may have numbered as many as 20,000. With several wars and epidemics throughout the region, their population was reduced to around 4,000 by 1700. By 1845, it had dropped to about 2,000. According to more recent information, there are about 16,000 today, most living in Oklahoma with some in Wisconsin and Ontario.

Sometimes called Lenni Lenape, the meaning of the word Lenape is "original man" or "true people." Their homeland was called Lenapehoking, "Land of the Lenape."

Some of these words I discovered in romance novels (I wrote them in a notebook when I found them in the novel, then later did more research on them.):

Suckachgook - Black Snake

Wulisso - Beautiful

Tscholentit - Little Bird

Mamalnunschetto - Spotted Doe

Mashelameek - Spotted Fish

K'dahoalell - I love you.

N'dockqueum - my wife

Suckahokus - Black Fox

Lintukseat - Wild Wolf

Sukameek - Black Fish

gelennil - hold me

hopokan - pipe for smoking

Lenape n'hackey - I am a Lenape

N'dochquewi - I am a woman.

I could keep talking about this forever! I'm passionate about history, especially the history of the area where I live, but I'll leave this for now. I hope this was entertaining and you learned something different and perhaps a little weird. A piece of history to carry with you.

Other suggested reading I highly recommend:





Be sure to check out the other blogger's suggestions at ...

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Beth-Ann Miller returns to her Tennessee mountain home to find chaos erupting between her family and their shape-shifting neighbors. Her father is convinced the were-cougar clan is responsible for the murders occurring in their area and interrogates one of the shifters, Boone Evans, her childhood sweetheart. When Boone declares several members of his shifter family have gone missing including his little brother, Beth-Ann suspects someone else is behind both the murders and abductions.

Boone never expected to see Beth-Ann again. When she frees him from her father's cabin and promises to help find his brother, Boone doesn't plan on rekindling their passionate love affair or facing the pain of past mistakes. Nor does he plan on coming face to face with the man responsible for altering his family's life forever.

With men hunting the were-cougars, can Beth-Ann and Boone risk all to have a future together? Or is loving Boone too high a price to pay? 

AMAZON