Abenaki

Meanings

1. A member of an Algonquian First People from northeastern North America, mainly Maine and Quebec.

1. A complex of Eastern Algonquian lects, originally spoken in what is now Maine, and Quebec, divided into Western Abenaki and Eastern Abenaki (Penobscot).
2. The Western Abenaki language.

1. Related or pertaining to the Abenaki people or language.

Etymology

From French abénaquis, either from Montagnais ouabanākionek (“people of the eastern country”) or from the Western Abenaki autonym Wôbanaki (whence also the English calque Dawnland) or an Eastern Abenaki/Penobscot cognate of the same, from Algonquin. Ultimately a compound word meaning "people of the east" or "people of the dawn-land", from Proto-Algonquian *wa·panki (“dawn”) + *askyi (“land”).