[Footnote 43: Description of New Sweden, b. ii. c. 8. (Duponceau's translation.)]
[Footnote 44: N.Y. Hist. Soc. Collections, iii. 375.]
_Manisses_ or Monasses, as Block Island was called, is another form of the diminutive,--from _munnoh_; and _Manhasset_, otherwise written, Munhansick, a name of Shelter Island, is the same diminutive with the locative affix, _munna-es-et_. So is 'Manusses' or 'Mennewies,' an island near Rye, N.Y.,--now written (with the southern form of the locative,) _Manussing_.
_Montauk_ Point, formerly Montauket, Montacut, and by Roger Williams, _Munnawtawkit_, is probably from _manati_, _auke_, and _-it_ locative; 'in the Island country,' or 'country of the Islanders.'
The other name of 'Island,' in Algonkin languages, is AHQUEDNE or OCQUIDNE; with the locative; _ahquednet_, as in Acts xxvii. 16. (Compare, Cree, _ákootin_, "it suspends, is _sit_-uate, e.g. an island in the water," from _âkoo_, a verbal root "expressive of a state of rest." Howse's Grammar, p. 152. Micmac, _agwitk_, "it is in the water;" whence, _Ep-agwit_, "it lies [sits?] in the water,"[45] the Indian name of Prince Edward's Island.) This appears to have been restricted in its application, to islands lying near the main land or spoken of _with reference_ to the main land. Roger Williams learned from the Narragansetts to call Rhode Island, _Aquiday_, Aquednet, &c., '_the_ Island' or 'at the Island,' and a "little island in the mouth of the Bay," was _Aquedenesick_,[46] or Aquidneset, i.e. 'at the small island.'
[Footnote 45: Dawson's Acadian Geology, App. p. 673.]
[Footnote 46: 4th Mass. Hist. Collections, vi. 267.]
_Chippaquiddick_, the modern name of an island divided by a narrow strait from Martha's Vineyard, is from _cheppi-aquidne_, 'separated island.'
Abnaki names ending in _-ka[n]tti_, or _-kontee_ (Mass. _-kontu_; Etchemin or Maliseet, _-kodiah_, _-quoddy_; Micmac, _-ka[n]di_, or _-aikadee_;) may be placed with those of the first class, though this termination, representing a substantival component, is really only the locative affix of nouns in the _indefinite plural_. Exact location was denoted by affixing, to inanimate nouns-singular, _-et_, _-it_ or _-ut_; proximity, or something _less_ than exact location, by _-set_, (interposing _s_, the characteristic of diminutives and derogatives) between the noun and affix. _Plural_ nouns, representing a _definite number_ of individuals, or a number which might be regarded _as_ definite, received _-ettu_, _-ittu_, or _-uttu_, in the locative: but if the number was _indefinite_, or many individuals were spoken of collectively, the affix was _-kontu_, denoting 'where many are,' or 'place of abundance.' For example, _wadchu_, mountain; _wadchu-ut_, to, on, or at the mountain; _wadchu-set_, near the mountain; _wadchuuttu_ (or _-ehtu_), in or among _certain mountains_, known or indicated (as in Eliot's version of Numbers xxxiii. 47, 48); _wadchué-kontu_, among mountains, where there are a great many mountains, for 'in the hill country,' Joshua xiii. 6. So, _nippe-kontu_, 'in the waters,' i.e. in _many_ waters, or 'where there is much water,' Deut. iv. 18; v. 8. In Deuteronomy xi. 11, the conversion to a verb of a noun which had previously received this affix, shows that the idea of _abundance_ or of _multitude_ is associated with it: "_ohke wadchuuhkontu[oo]_," i.e. _wadechué-kontu-[oo]_, "the land is a land of hills," that is, where are _many_ hills, or where hills are _plenty_.