wampumpeag
Feb. 4th, 2014 07:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
prettygoodwordwampumpeag (WAWM-puhm-peeg) - n., small cylindrical usually white beads made from polished shells and fashioned into strings or belts, used by certain Native American peoples as jewelry or currency.
Now better known as wampum for short -- this is the full word. Note that the English shortening does not follow the original grammar: in Narragansett (the Algonquin language of what's now Rhode Island from which it was adopted in the 1620s) the elements are wamp/wap, white + umpe, string + -ag, plural suffix.
---L.
Now better known as wampum for short -- this is the full word. Note that the English shortening does not follow the original grammar: in Narragansett (the Algonquin language of what's now Rhode Island from which it was adopted in the 1620s) the elements are wamp/wap, white + umpe, string + -ag, plural suffix.
---L.
