Swampy Cree Language
Swampy Cree (variously known as Maskekon, Omaškêkowak, and often anglicized as Omushkego) is a variety of the Algonquian language, Cree. Swampy Cree is spoken in a series of Swampy Cree communities in northern Manitoba, central northeast of Saskatchewan along the Saskatchewan River and along the Hudson Bay coast and adjacent inland areas to the south and west, and Ontario along the coast of Hudson Bay and James Bay . Within the group of dialects called "West Cree", it is referred to as an "n-dialect", meaning that the variable phoneme common to all Cree dialects appears as "n" in this dialect (as opposed to y, r, l, or ð; all of these phonemes are considered a linguistic reflex of Proto-Algonquian *r).
It had approximately 4500 speakers in a population of 5000 as of 1982 according to the 14th edition of the Ethnologue. Canadian census data does not identify specific dialects of Cree (i.e., all estimates now current rely on extrapolations from specific studies), and, currently, no accurate census of any Algonquian language exists.
The Grammar and examples used on this page were taken from Ellis's Second Edition (1983) of "Spoken Cree."
Read more about Swampy Cree Language: Dialects of Swampy Cree, Morphology
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“They are very proper forest houses, the stems of the trees collected together and piled up around a man to keep out wind and rain,—made of living green logs, hanging with moss and lichen, and with the curls and fringes of the yellow birch bark, and dripping with resin, fresh and moist, and redolent of swampy odors, with that sort of vigor and perennialness even about them that toadstools suggest.”
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An infant crying in the night;
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