Editing Penobscot (section)

==Language==
Penobscot people historically spoke a dialect of [[Abenaki language|Eastern Abenaki]], an [[Algonquian languages|Algonquian language]]. It is very similar to the languages of the other members of the [[Wabanaki Confederacy]]. There are no fluent speakers and the last known Penobscot speaker of Eastern Abenaki, Madeline Tower Shay,<ref name=ethno>[http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=aaq "Abnaki, Eastern"]. ''Ethnologue''. Retrieved 30 August 2012.</ref> died in the 1990s. A dictionary was compiled by [[Frank Siebert]].<ref name=":0">{{Cite magazine|last=Gregory|first=Alice|date=2021-04-12|title=How Did a Self-Taught Linguist Come to Own an Indigenous Language?|url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/04/19/how-did-a-self-taught-linguist-come-to-own-an-indigenous-language|magazine=The New Yorker|language=en-US|access-date=2021-06-29}}</ref> The elementary school and the [[Boys & Girls Clubs of America|Boys and Girls Club]] on Indian Island are making an effort to reintroduce the language by teaching it to the children.<ref>{{cite web
 |url= http://www.penobscotnation.org/PNBGC/index.htm
 |title=Penobscot Nation Boys & Girls Club
 |work=penobscotnation.org
 |access-date=14 January 2011
}}</ref> The written Penobscot language was developed with a modified [[Latin script|Roman alphabet]]; distinct characters have been developed to represent sounds that do not exist in the Roman alphabet.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.iis.bia.edu/ |title=Indian Island School |access-date=2009-08-05 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091012093150/http://www.iis.bia.edu/ |archive-date=2009-10-12 }}</ref><ref name=":0" />

In 1643, [[Roger Williams]] wrote ''[[A Key into the Language of America]]''. In this work, Williams explained that the [[Narragansett language|language of the Narragansett]] people (and tribes they'd overtaken or forced into submission) used a language differing only from the northern Algonquian people, in dialect. He wrote that if one tribe's language was known, communication with the other tribe was possible; this was the case all the way north to remote areas of [[Labrador]]. Natives in Labrador spoke Algonquian and the Labrador neighbors were of same linguistic stock as the Narragansett tribe. (Williams wrote that this was not the case with the drastically different [[Iroquoian languages|Iroquois language]].) Fluent in many languages, Williams had lived with native people to improve his native language skill before embarking on missionary work and authoring prayer conversion booklets. His opinion, Williams wrote, was that the Narragansett (hence the Algonquian) in many cases had words that were Hebrew or in a few cases Greek that he recognized from his work in old Hebrew and Greek biblical text translations. His book ''A Key into the Language of America'' includes a phonetic English dictionary that Williams wished to publish so that his knowledge of this [[Indigenous languages of the Americas|Native American language]] would not die with him.<ref>A Key into the Language of America. Roger Williams & Howard Chapin. 1643 Gregory Dexter,London. Publisher,</ref>