Mohican language
- noun
- Efforts to preserve the Mohican language have increased as fewer speakers remain.
Examples
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Learning the Mohican language can help us understand the culture of the Mohican people.
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The Mohican language is one of the indigenous languages of the northeastern United States.
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Although he never learned the Mohican language, Edwards attempted to deploy the English language in a way that would reach straight to the experience of his auditors.
Academic text (2003)
Synonyms
1
9.9
A language once spoken by a Native American group that lived along the Hudson River
The language of a Native American group from the northeastern United States
A language the Mohican people once spoke in the northeastern United States that no one now speaks
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly compositional: 'Mohican' names the people/group and 'language' denotes the tongue they speak, so a learner who knows both constituents can infer it refers to the language of the Mohican people. The 'X language' naming pattern is a standard, cross-linguistically common construction and therefore immediately predictable to learners.
Etymology
Mohican language gets its name from the Mohican people who lived along the Hudson River. One popular story says their name meant 'people of the river', so the term refers to the 'language' spoken by those river people.