The Delaware Primers of Ira D. Blanchard (Paperback)

<p> This book presents an edition of the three school primers in the Southern Unami dialect of the Delaware language (Lenape; ISO code <strong>unm</strong>) that were produced by the Baptist missionary Ira D. Blanchard in the years 1834 and 1842. Their short titles are: Linapi'e Lrkvekun (Blanchard 1834a), Linapie Lrkvekun (Blanchard 1834b) and The Delaware First Book (Blanchard [and Journeycake] 1842). Blanchard was aided by two bilingual young men, James Conner and Charles Journeycake.</p><p> The Delawares were at the time in a part of Indian Territory that is now eastern Kansas. The books were printed on a press at the nearby Shawnee mission. They were written entirely in Delaware and, as primers, were intended to teach reading to monolingual Delaware-speaking children. The language is written in a special alphabet devised by the printer Jotham Meeker that is long out of use, and the contents of the primers have been effectively inaccessible.</p><p> The lessons include warnings against drunkenness, Bible stories, the world around us, contemporary life, and the planned Indian state.</p><p> Also available from the editors are an edition of Blanchard and Conner's Delaware translation of a Harmony of the Gospels (1837-1839; Goddard 2021a), a Glossary to Blanchard's publications (Beckwith and Goddard 2021), and a Grammar of Southern Unami Delaware based on Blanchard's books and twentieth-century fieldwork with the last speakers (Goddard 2021b).</p><p> Southern Unami is the heritage language of the Delaware Tribe of Indians (Bartlesville, Okla.) and the Delaware Nation of Western Oklahoma (Anadarko).</p><p><br></p><p><br></p><p><br></p>