Terrence Malick, the director of The New World, brought in a linguist who has worked with tribes to reconstruct the Powhatan language spoken by Pocahontas and her tribe.

Blair A. Rudes, a linguist at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, has helped the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation of Connecticut and the Catawba Nation of South Carolina with language revitalization programs. For the film, he resurrected Powhatan by studying other languages in the Algonquin family.

Of the Algonquian languages spoken in the Eastern United States, only Passamaquoddy and Mi'kmaq are still used. Other Algonquian languages include Cree and Ojibwe.

Get the Story:
Linguists Find the Words, and Pocahontas Speaks Again (The New York TImes 3/7)
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Relevant Links:
The New World - http://www.thenewworldmovie.com

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