Relating to a large Native American language family spoken across the northeastern and central North America, or to the peoples who speak these languages.
From Anishinaabemowin algonkian, possibly meaning 'at the place where they catch fish.' European colonizers' phonetic attempts to write indigenous words led to 'Algonquian,' the modern standard spelling used in scholarly contexts.
The Algonquian language family is so widespread and historically important that it's considered one of the major language families of North America—yet most English speakers have never heard the word, showing how indigenous history gets erased from mainstream education.
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