Loup language
Loup is an extinct Algonquian language, or possibly group of languages, spoken in colonial New England. Loup was a French colonial ethnographic term, and usage was inconsistent. In modern literature, it refers to two varieties, Loup A and Loup B.Attestation
Loup A, which may be the language of the Nipmuck, is principally attested from a word list recorded from refugees by the St. Francis mission to the Abenaki in Quebec. The descendants of these refugees became speakers of Western Abenaki in the eighteenth century. Loup B refers to a second word list, which shows extensive dialectal variation. This may not be a distinct language, but just notes on the speech of various New England Algonquian refugees in French missions.Phonology
The phonology of Loup A, reconstructed by Gustafson 2000:
| Short | Long | Nasal |
| Close | i | iː | |
| Mid | e | | |
| Open | a | aː | ã |
| Back-mid | o | oː | |
| Back-close | | u | |
The vowel sounds likely have the same phonetic quality as other southern New England Algonquian languages. The short vowels /i o e a/ may represent the sounds as , , , and , while the long vowels /iː/, /oː/, and /ã/ correspond to /i/, /o/, and /ã/.
