At the time of first intensive European contact, from the 1580's to the 1620's, the Shewanaki (Atlantic Coast) from Pamptico Sound, North Carolina, to New Hampshire was occupied by a single language group. These people, whom I call Wapanakamikok (Eastern Land People), spoke various dialects of the same language, a language belonging to the large Algonkian family. The overall language can be compared with German, while the dialects can be compared with Swiss German, High German, Low German, et cetera. To the north and northwest were people speaking related but more distantly removed languages, such as Wabanaki (Penobscot-Passamaquddy-Malecite-Abenaki), Shawnee, and Ojibwe-Potawatomi-Odawa. These languages relate to the Wapanakamikok language as Dutch, Danish, Swedish, and Frisian relate to German. The Wapanakamikok people have been called many different names by the Europeans, such as Massachusetts, Naragansetts, Delawares, Powhatans, Piscataways, Nanticokes, and Pampticos. Many of the dialects are no longer spoken and it is not possible to be absolutely certain about the speech of each community. Nonetheless, the Unami dialect from near present Trenton, New Jersey, and the Minsi dialect from northern NewJersey are still spoken in Oklahoma and Ontario, while vocabularies exist for many of the dialects of North Carolina, Virginia, New York, and New England and many persons are trying to revive several of these. It would appear that the Wapanakamikok dialects changed gradually from village to village. It would be a mistake to assume that there were exact dialect boundaries, except where a migration had resulted in a new group being located in the midst of older communities. On the other hand, much evidence indicates that Wapanakamikok people shifted about quite a bit after European contact and that they were very much affected by dislocations caused by European epidemic diseases, by the movement of the Catawba, Tutelo and Saponi groups in Virginia and Carolina, by the White Mengwe (Andaste) and Black Mengwe (Cat People or Eries) invasions in Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and so on. In short, disease epidemics created flights from infected areas and resulting uninhabited zones; and the impact of the fur trade and European guns accelerated movements. Together these things helped to mix-up Wapanakamik People, leading to the creation of dialectically-mixed regions and new mixed tribes. This process must be kept in mind as one tries to clarify "original" pre-European conditions. The various Wapanakamikok groups had different names for themselves but it would appear that, aside from local names for villages, the most general form of self-identification was to use a form of the term "human being" or "man." The forms varied according to dialect between Renape ("R" dialect groups), Lenape ("L" dialect groups), and Nenape or Ninouk ("N" dialect groups). The use of "R" seems to have been dominant from Pamptico Sound, North Carolina, north to about Camden, NewJersey. The "L" appears dominant along the Pawtuxet (Delaware) River north of Camden. The "R" appears again in northeastern New Jersey and sporadically along the coast as far as Narragansett Bay. Generally, the "N" is dominant from the Hudson River to New Hampshire.