Editing Delaware languages (section)

==Classification==
The Lenape language is part of the Algonquian branch of the Algic language family, and is part of the [[Eastern Algonquian]] language grouping which is considered to be a genetically related sub-grouping of [[Algonquian languages|Algonquian]].

The languages of the Algonquian family constitute a group of historically related languages descended from a common source language, [[Proto-Algonquian language|Proto-Algonquian]], which was descended from Algic. The Algonquian languages are spoken across Canada from the Rocky Mountains to the Atlantic coast; on the American Plains; south of the Great Lakes; and on the Atlantic coast. Many of the Algonquian languages are now sleeping.{{clarify|date=July 2019}}

The [[Eastern Algonquian languages]], spoken on the [[East Coast of the United States|Atlantic coast]] from what are now called the Canadian Maritime provinces to what is now called [[North Carolina]]; many of the languages are now sleeping, and some are known only from very fragmentary records.<ref>Goddard, Ives, 1978</ref> Eastern Algonquian is considered a genetic subgroup within the [[Algonquian languages|Algonquian family]], that is, the Eastern Algonquian languages share a sufficient number of common innovations to suggest that they descend from a common intermediate source, Proto-Eastern Algonquian.
The linguistic closeness of Munsee and Unami entails that they share an immediate common ancestor which may be called ''Common Delaware;'' the two languages have diverged in distinct ways from Common Delaware.<ref>Goddard, Ives, 1997, p. 85, n.7</ref>

Several shared phonological innovations support a genetic subgroup consisting of the Delaware languages and [[Mahican language|Mahican]],<ref>Goddard, Ives, 2008, pp. 280-282</ref> sometimes referred to as ''Delawaran''.<ref name="Delawaran" /><ref name="GlottologDelawaran" /> Nonetheless Unami and Munsee are more closely related to each other than to Mahican. Some historical evidence suggests commonalities between Mahican and Munsee.<ref>Pentland, David, 1992, pp. 15, 20</ref>

The line of historical descent is therefore Proto-Algonquian > Proto-Eastern Algonquian > Delawarean > Common Delaware + Mahican, with Common Delaware splitting into Munsee and Unami.