Wikibooks has more on the topic of
| Mohawk Kanien’kéha |
||
|---|---|---|
| Pronunciation: | [ɡanjʌ̃ʔˈɡɛha] | |
| Spoken in: | United States, Canada | |
| Region: | Ontario, Quebec and northern New York | |
| Total speakers: | 3,350 (Ethnologue); 615 in Canada [1] | |
| Language family: | Iroquoian Northern Iroquoian Proto-Lake Iroquoian Iroquois Proper Mohawk-Oneida Mohawk |
|
| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639-1: | none | |
| ISO 639-2: | moh | |
| ISO 639-3: | moh | |
| Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. | ||
Mohawk is a Native American language spoken by the Mohawk nation in the United States and Canada. It is part of the Iroquoian family. In schools of northern New York particularly in Native American Reservations Native American Languages are taught depending on the tribe in the reservation
Contents |
Mohawk has three major dialects: Western (Six Nations and Tyendinaga), Central (Ahkwesáhsne), and Eastern (Kahnawà:ke and Kanehsatà:ke); the differences between them are largely phonological. The pronunciation of /r/ and several consonant clusters may differ in the dialects.
| Underlying Phonology | Western | Central | Eastern | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| seven | /tsjata/ | [ˈʤaːda] | [ˈʤaːda] | [ˈʣaːda] |
| nine | /tjohtu/ | [ˈdjɔhdũ] | [ˈgjɔhdũ] | [ˈʤɔhdũ] |
| I fall | /kjaʔtʌʔs/ | [ˈgjàːdʌ̃ʔs] | [ˈgjàːdʌ̃ʔs] | [ˈʤàːdʌ̃ʔs] |
| dog | /erhar/ | [ˈɛɹhaɹ] | [ˈɛlhal] | [ˈɛɹhaɹ] |
The phoneme inventory is as follows (using the International Phonetic Alphabet). Phonological representation (underlying forms) are in /slashes/, and the standard Mohawk orthography is in bold.
An interesting feature of Mohawk (and Iroquoian) phonology is that there are no labials, except in a few adoptions from French and English, where [m] and [p] appear (e.g., mátsis matches and aplám Abraham); these sounds are late additions to Mohawk phonology and were introduced after widespread European contact.
| Dental | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | n | |||
| Plosive | t | k | ʔ | |
| Affricate | ʤ | |||
| Fricative | s | h | ||
| Rhotic | r | |||
| Approximant | l | j | w |
The Central (Ahkwesáhsne) dialect has the following consonant clusters:
| 1st↓ · 2nd→ | t | k | s | h | l | n | ʤ | j | w |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| t | tt | tk | ts | th | |||||
| k | kt | kk | ks | kh | |||||
| ʔ | ʔt | ʔk | ʔs | ʔl | ʔn | ʔʤ | ʔj | ʔw | |
| s | st | sk | ss | sh | sl | sn | sj | sw | |
| h | ht | hk | hs | hl | hn | hʤ | hj | hw | |
| l | lh | lj | |||||||
| n | nh | nl | nj | ||||||
| ʤ | ʤj | ||||||||
| w | wh |
All clusters can occur word-medially; those on a red background can also occur word-initially.
The consonants /k/, /kw/, /t/, /ts/ are pronounced voiced before any voiced sound (i.e. a vowel or /j/). They are voiceless at the end of a word or before a voiceless sound. /s/ is voiced word initially and between vowels.
Note that th and sh are pronounced as consonant clusters, not single sounds like in English thing and she.
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| High | i | ũ | |
| Mid | e | ʌ̃ | o |
| Low | a |
i, e, a, and o are oral vowels, while ʌ̃ and ũ (see help:IPA) are nasalized; oral versions of ʌ̃ and ũ do not occur in the language.
The Mohawk alphabet consists of only twelve letters: a e h i k n o r s t w y. The orthography was standardized in 1993[2]. The standard allows for some variation of how the language is represented, most notably:, and the clusters /ts(i)/, /tj/, and /ky/ are written as pronounced in each community. The orthography matches the phonological analysis as above except:
Stress, vowel length and tone are linked together in Mohawk. There are three kinds of stressed vowels: short-high tone, long-high tone, and long-falling tone. Stress is always written and only occurs once per word.
Mohawk expresses a large number of pronominal distinctions: person (1st, 2nd, 3rd), number (singular, dual, plural), gender (masculine, feminine/indefinite, feminine/neuter) and inclusivity/exclusivity on the first person dual and plural. Pronominal information is encoded in prefixes on the verbs; separate pronoun words are used for emphasis. There are three main paradigms of pronominal prefixes: subjective (with dynamic verbs), objective (with stative verbs), and transitive.
As of 1994 there were approximately 3,000 speakers of Mohawk, primarily in Quebec, Ontario and western New York.[3]
A few resources are available for self-study of Mohawk by a person with no or limited access to native speakers of Mohawk. Here is a collection of some resources currently available: