What is the Algonquin translation for love?

Answer 1

Algonquian is a name given to a group of dialects spoken from Southern New England as far north as Canada and West to the Pacific coast. It does not include the languages of the Plains Indians, South Western tribes or those in the South East of the country.

Algonquian language does not have the same structure as Latin based European languages and is much more precise in meaning. For example, in English we might say "It is great" but we allow the person who hears that word to interpret it's meaning in the general context of the conversation. But what do we really mean by 'great'? Height? Width? Mass? Power?.. It goes on. Algonquian terms are usually used in a way which explicitly defines it's meaning.

What does this mean? Well it means you have to think about what you really mean by your own words in order to be able to give a suitable translation.

Let us take your word 'God'. Not meaning to raise any religious debate but I would have to ask what you really mean here. I do not know of your religious beliefs so I have no basis of knowing. You also have to understand that this word would not have the same meaning to a Native American of the 1500's, before European settlers began arriving.

To make things more complicated, there is also a matter of pronunciation. Records of the Algonquian language were written by European speakers, using their own written letters to record the sounds which they heard. This was not a good process, people hear things differently and not only that, the way of speaking in the 15/1600's was not the same as it is now.

So, I hope you begin to understand that giving you an answer is not as easy as it might be say if you wanted the answer in French or German.

However.....

"love you" - First hurdle, imprecision! You should really be saying what loves you. Let us say then "I love you." This would be 'koowomonush' , based on the verb 'womonau' -> "he loves". How do you pronounce it? - koo-womon-uh-sh. The 'o' is an 'o', not as we might pronounce 'o' in woman - female of our species! The 'oo' as in 'boot'.

I will leave out "sweetheart" - a literal translation would not mean to a Native American what I think you mean. It would not be a term of endearment.

"God" - If you mean the one I think, then the word used would be the same - as what is called a loan-word, one taken from its original language and used in another, rather like English contains many 'foreign' words in daily usage such as 'cafe'. You might have heard of the word 'manit' or 'manitoo'. This was the word Europeans came to associate with their word 'God'. It has a much larger spiritual meaning - let us not get into that.

You can find out quite a lot about Algonquian languages by looking for them on the internet. Have fun!

Answer 2

In Algonquin, I love you is Kisakiin

Answer 3

i love you =(kee-zag-ghin)-kisagin