Lunaape
Lenape (Munsee)
Mahwah (NJ)esides the southern bit of what is now New York, traditional Lenape-speaking territory encompasses New Jersey, northern Delaware, and eastern Pennsylvania, where people lived in a constellation of separate, but linguistically and culturally similar, bands — 40 or more of them with a few hundred members each. In New Jersey, there were the Raritans, the Haverstraw, the Tappan, the Hackensack, the Minisinks, and others; in what is now New York City, the Canarsee, the Nayack, the Rockaway, and others. Across the Lenape world, at least three closely related languages were probably spoken: Southern Unami, Northern Unami, and Munsee (the northern variety associated with most of today's metro NYC). Today, after centuries of dispersal and diaspora, the Lenape are in Ontario, with three officially recognized Lenape clusters at Moraviantown, Munsee, and the mixed Six Nations Reserve. They are in Oklahoma — two federally recognized Lenape tribes in the west and the east of the state — and they are at Stockbridge in Wisconsin. There are also a number of groups and individuals across New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and elsewhere who claim Lenape heritage. There are a few native speakers of Munsee remaining in Ontario, and revival efforts — including classes taught by Lenape language keeper Karen Hunter at the Endangered Language Alliance on 18th Street in Manaháhtaan and at Ramapough Lunaape Nation in Mahwah, New Jersey — are ongoing.