Unami language in the context of "Delaware Tribe of Indians"

The Susquehanna River (/ˌsʌskwəˈhænə/ SUSS-kwə-HAN-ə; Lenape: Siskëwahane) is a major river located in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, crossing three lower Northeast states (New York, Pennsylvania and Maryland). At 444 miles (715 km) long, it is the longest river on the East Coast of the United States. By watershed area, it is the 16th-largest river in the United States, and also the longest river in the early 21st-century continental United States without commercial boat traffic.

The Susquehanna River forms from two main branches: the North Branch, which rises in Cooperstown, New York, and is regarded by federal mapmakers as the main branch or headwaters, and the West Branch, which rises in western Pennsylvania and joins the main branch near Northumberland in central Pennsylvania.

The Allegheny River (/ˌælɪˈɡeɪni/ AL-ig-AY-nee; Seneca: Ohi:yo'; Unami: Alikehane) is a 325-mile-long (523 km) tributary of the Ohio River that is located in western Pennsylvania and New York in the United States. It runs from its headwaters just below the middle of Pennsylvania's northern border, northwesterly into New York, then in a zigzag southwesterly across the border and through Western Pennsylvania to join the Monongahela River at the Forks of the Ohio at Point State Park in Downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

The Allegheny River is, by volume, the main headstream of both the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. Historically, the Allegheny was considered to be the upper Ohio River by both Native Americans and European settlers.

The Delaware languages, also known as the Lenape languages (Delaware: Lënapei èlixsuwakàn), are Munsee and Unami, two closely related languages of the Eastern Algonquian subgroup of the Algonquian language family. Munsee and Unami were spoken aboriginally by the Lenape people in the vicinity of the modern New York City area in the United States, including western Long Island, Manhattan Island, Staten Island, as well as adjacent areas on the mainland: southeastern New York State, eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Connecticut, Maryland, and Delaware.

Munsee (also known as Munsee Delaware, Delaware, Ontario Delaware, Delaware: Huluníixsuwaakan, Monsii èlixsuwakàn) is an endangered language of the Eastern Algonquian subgroup of the Algonquian language family, itself a branch of the Algic language family. Munsee is one of two Delaware languages (also known as Lenape languages, after the tribe's autonym). It is very closely related to the Unami Delaware, but the two are sufficiently different that they are considered separate languages. Munsee was spoken aboriginally by Lenape in the vicinity of the modern New York City area in the United States, including western Long Island, Manhattan Island, Staten Island, as well as adjacent areas on the mainland: southeastern New York State, the northern third of New Jersey, and northeastern Pennsylvania.

As of 2018, Munsee was spoken only on the Moraviantown Reserve in Ontario, Canada, by two elderly individuals, aged 77 and 90, making it critically endangered. As of 2022, only one elderly native speaker remained. When the number of speakers was somewhat larger, the language was reported to differ between individual speakers, each having a personal dialect. There has been interest in learning the language by younger individuals. Some researchers and universities have partnered with indigenous communities in an effort to revitalize the language, notably Montclair State University and the University of Toronto.

Nora Thompson Dean (July 3, 1907 – November 29, 1984), from Dewey, Oklahoma, was a member of the Delaware Tribe of Indians. As a Lenape traditionalist and one of the last fluent speakers of the southern Unami dialect of the Lenape language, she was an influential mentor to younger tribal members and is widely cited in scholarship on Lenape /luh-NAH-pay/ culture.

Nora was also known by her indigenous blessing name, Weènchipahkihëlèxkwe, ‘Touching Leaves Woman.’ These blessing names are normally kept quiet, but Nora was such a wonderful woman that it should be shown why she additionally had such an appealing demeanor. It would be sad to let it pass from memory by silence. The Unami (= /w’NAH-mee/ ‘downriver [person]’) name of Nora Thompson Dean and the genealogy of her ancestors is now readily accessible on the Internet after someone in 2008 adapted the spelling Wenjipahkeehlehkwe), intending it to be limited to one cultural event, but it spread widely on the Internet. Its modern spelling is Weènchipahkihëlèxkwe, ‘Touching Leaves Woman’, or, as Nora herself had proposed, ‘Leaves-that-touch-each-other-from-time-to-time woman.’ It is phonetically written as Weεnčipahkihəlεxkwe, /way-en-jee-paH-kee-hull-EKH-kway/. The morphological segments are as follows: (We:εnt-ipahk-ihəle:)-xkwe, ‘on.both.sides/on.either.side/together-leaves-moving–woman’. The initial stem shows a reciprocal reduplication, rare for Unami, (*we:we:- instead of wë-), ‘the leaves (of the trees) on either side (of the path) come together (overhead rustling)’. This is the kind of blessing name that is derived from a vision recitation. Her name was bestowed on her by her mother, Sarah Wilson Thompson. The woman with whom Sarah Wilson was riding on a horse was not her biological mother but her aunt, Way-lay-luh-mah (‘the esteemed one’), as supplied by Weslager, and it was not Kweiti, Sarah's biological mother, but Way-lay-luh-mahwho raised her and whom she called her mother, and so Nora called Way-lay-luh-mah her grandmother. This naming pattern is in line with Lenape kinship ideas. The vision occurred after Sarah was riding horseback one day holding onto Way-lay-luh-mah's waist when Way-lay-luh-mah had fainted from a probable heart attack. Sarah tried to hold her, but her grip slipped, and both had fallen off the horse. Sarah was very frightened, but some of the trees turned into people who told her not to be afraid and wanted to help her. Sarah stood listening, and the tree leaves by rustling started to sing a song to her, one that she sang in the Big House. [Paraphrased by Carl Masthay per NTD's interview by Katherine Red Corn, April 1968, and compiled with help from Ives Goddard, Raymond Whritenour, and James Rementer.]

Lackawanna County (/ˌlækəˈwɒnə/; Unami: Lèkaohane) is a county in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. It had a population of 215,615 in 2022. Its county seat and most populous city is Scranton. The county is part of the Northeast region of the commonwealth.

The county was created on August 13, 1878, following decades of trying to gain its independence from Luzerne County. Lackawanna was Pennsylvania's last county to be created, and the only county to be created after the American Civil War. It is named for the Lackawanna River.