Mohawk (language)

Mohawk / ˈmoʊhɔːk / refers to the language of the North American people of the same name, the Mohawk , who call themselves Kanien'kéha (pronunciation: [ɡa.njʌ̃ʔ.ˈɡe.ha]) meaning "language of the flint people". It belongs to the family of Iroquois languages .

Mohawk ( Kanien'kéha, Kanyen'kéha )
Spoken in	United States (northern New York ) Canada ( Ontario , Quebec )
speaker	3500 (2011)
Linguistic classification	Iroquois languages Mohawk Oneida
Official status
Official language in	regional status reserves
Language codes
ISO 639 -1	moh

Distribution area today

Northeast United States

Mohawk speakers now live in settlements throughout New York State , including Ganienkeh and Kanatsiohareke .

Canada

Mohawk speakers live in southeast Canada in Akwesasne (St. Regis) along the Ontario-New York state border, in Kanesatake (Oka) and Kahnawake in southern Quebec near Montreal, and in Tyendinaga (near Kingston) and Wahta (Gibson) in southern Ontario. Furthermore, the Mohawk form the largest group in the mixed Iroquois reservation, Six Nations of the Grand River , in Ontario.

bilingual stop sign in Kahnawake

Number of speakers

The approximately 35,000 members of the Mohawk people speak according to various sources such as B. the Ethnologue about 3500 still Mohawk. In the 2011 Canadian Census, 540 said they spoke Mohawk as their first language. In total, around 3,000 more speakers are said to use Mohawk and a few hundred to speak it as a second language alongside English. At the Mohawk Survival School in Kahnawake , school lessons are largely on Mohawk.

Language example

Some examples of mohawk

German	Mohawk
dog	é: rhar
girl	ieksá: 'a
man	rón: kwe
wolf	ohkwaho

Dialects

Mohawk consists of three dialects: Western Mohawk (Ohswé: ken and Kenhté: ke), Central Mohawk (Ahkwesáhsne), and Eastern Mohawk (Kahnawà: ke and Kanehsatà: ke); the differences are largely phonological due to the tribe's residential areas in the 18th century. The pronunciation of / r / and other consonant clusters varies across dialects.

Language typology

The Mohawk is based on a polysynthetic language structure with vowels of different pitches .

Stress, length, and pitch of vowels

Stress, vowel length and pitch are linked in the Mohawk. There are three types of accented vowels: the short-high tone, the long-rising tone, and the long-falling tone. Pitch is always written and only marked once in the word.

• The short-high tone is mostly used in closed syllables or before / h /. It is written with an acute acute : fruit káhi , street oháha .
• The long-rising tone usually occurs in open syllables. It is written from a combination of an acute accent and a colon: Stadt kaná: ta , Mann rón: kwe . If it is followed by a long nasal sound, the colon appears after the n .
• The long-falling tone is the result of the word stress on a vowel that precedes / ʔ / or / h / + a consonant. However, there are exceptions to this. The underlying crackling sound / ʔ / or / h / is used again when the emphasis is placed elsewhere. This phenomenon is then indicated by a grave accent with a colon: Magen onekwèn: ta (from / onekwʌ̃ʔta / ).

spelling

Trilingual sign in English, Mohawk and French describing the Grand River, placed in Galt, Cambridge, Ontario

The alphabet of the Mohawk consists of: aehiknorstwy together with ' and : . The spelling was standardized in 1993. The standard allows spelling variants depending on the dialect, especially the consonant clusters / ts (i) / , / tj / and / ky / can be implemented differently in each dialect according to the pronunciation that applies there.

• The crackling sound / ʔ / is written with an apostrophe ' and is usually avoided at the end of words, especially in the Eastern dialect, where it is not pronounced.
• / dʒ /
  • / dʒ / becomestsin the Eastern dialect (the spelling reflects the pronunciation). Sevenistsá: ta [dzaːda] .
  • / dʒ / is writtentsiin the central dialect. Sevenistsiá: ta [dʒaːda] .
  • / dʒ / is writtentsyin the western dialect. Sevenistsyá: ta [dʒaːda] .
• / y /
  • / j / is usuallyspellediin the central and eastern dialect. Sixisià: ia'k [jàːjaʔk] .
  • / j / is commonlyspelledyin the Western dialect. Sixisyà: ya'k [jàːjaʔk] .
• The vowel / ʌ̃ / is en , as in English one is written, thus énska [ʌ̃ska] .
• The vowel / ũ / is written on , e.g. B. sha'té: kon [shaʔdɛːɡũ] .
• In those cases where the vowel is / e / or / o / and is followed by a / n / in the same syllable, the / n / is written with an underscore: keṉhó: tons (I'm closing the door). If the ṉ didn't have the underscore, the sound [en] [ʌ̃] would be pronounced.

The underscore is not part of the standard orthography and is not used in the central and eastern dialect. In standard orthography, an / h / is inserted before / n / to write [en] or [on]: kehnhó: tons (I'm closing the door).

	Standard phonology	Western	Central	Eastern
seven	/ tsjáːta /	[ˈD͡ʒaːda]	[ˈD͡ʒaːda]	[ˈD͡zaːda]
nine	/ tjóhton /	[ˈDjɔhdũ]	[ˈꞬjɔhdũ]	[ˈD͡ʒɔhdũ]
I fall	/ kjaʔtʌʔs /	[ˈꞬjàːdʌ̃ʔs]	[ˈꞬjàːdʌ̃ʔs]	[ˈD͡ʒàːdʌ̃ʔs]
dog	/ érhar /	[ˈƐrhar]	[ˈƐlhal]	[ˈƐːɽhaɽ]

See also

• Single language
• language
• Language family
• Language families of the world

Web links

• Indian languages ( Memento from May 27, 2003 in the Internet Archive )
• North and Mesoamerican languages
• Ethnologue: Languages ​​of the World English

Individual evidence

1. ^ Laurie Bauer: The Linguistics Student's Handbook, Edinburgh 2007
2. ↑ Mohawk . Ethnologue. Retrieved April 8, 2016.
3. ↑ Mohawk language at Ethnologue (18th edition 2015)
4. ↑ Endangered Languages ​​- Danger to Minorities Worldwide (PDF) gfbv.de. March 2010. Retrieved April 8, 2016.
5. ^ Laurie Bauer: The Linguistics Student's Handbook, Edinburgh 2007
6. ↑ Bonvillain, Nancy: A Grammar Of Akwesasne Mohawk. National Museum of Man, National Museums of Canada 1973
7. ^ "Mohawk Language Standardization Project" ( Memento April 8, 2005 in the Internet Archive ), Conference Report, August 9-10, 1993.