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:''This article is about the language spoken by the Mohawk people; for other uses, see Mohawk.''
'Mohawk' is a Native American language spoken by the Mohawk nation in the United States and Canada. It is part of the Iroquoian family.

Contents

Dialects

Phonology

Consonants

Vowels

Orthography

Stress, Length, and Tone

Grammar

Learning Mohawk

References

External links

Dialects

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''
''nine''
''I fall''
''dog''

Phonology

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.

Consonants

An interesting feature of Mohawk (and Iroquoian) phonology is that there are no labials, except in a few adoptions from French and English, where and appear (e.g., 'mátsis' ''matches'' and 'aplám' ''Abraham''); as such, these sounds are late additions to Mohawk phonology and were introduced after widespread European contact.

	Dental	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Plosive
Affricate
Fricative
Nasal
Liquid/Semivowel

Consonant clusters in the Central (Ahkwesáhsne) dialect:
-.
Those clusters preceded by a hyphen only occur word-medially; the others occur both initially and medially.
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.
''car'' – 'kà:sere'

''that'' – 'thí:ken'

''hello, still'' – 'shé:kon'

Note that 'th' and 'sh' are pronounced as consonant clusters, ''not'' single sounds like in English ''thing'' and ''she''.

Vowels

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center;"
! 
!Front
!Central
!Back
|-
!High
|{{IPA|i
| 
|
|-
!Mid
|
|
|
|-
!Low
| 
|
| 
|}
''i'', ''e'', ''a'', and ''o'' are oral vowels, while ''ʌ'' and ''u'' (IPA and ) are nasalized; oral versions of ''ʌ'' and ''u'' do not occur in the language.

Orthography

The Mohawk orthography was standardised in 1993^[1]. The standard allows for some variation of how the language is represented, most notably:, and the clusters /ts(i)/, /ty/, and /ky/ are written as pronunced in each community. The orthography matches the phonological analysis as above except:

★ The glottal stop /ʔ/ is written with an apostrophe '’', it is often omitted at the end of words, especially in Eastern dialect where it is typically not pronounced.

★ /ʤ/

★
★ /ʤ/ is written 'ts' in the Eastern dialect (reflecting pronunciation). ''Seven'' is 'tsá:ta' [dza:da].

★
★ /ʤ/ is written 'tsi' in the Central dialect. ''Seven'' is 'tsiá:ta' [dʒa:da].

★
★ /ʤ/ is written 'tsy' in the Western dialect. ''Seven'' is 'tsyá:ta' [dʒa:da].

★ /j/

★
★ /j/ is typically written 'i' in the Central and Eastern dialects. ''Six'' is 'ià:ia’k' [jà:jaʔk].

★
★ /j/ is usually written 'y' in the Western dialect. ''Six'' is 'yà:ya’k' [jà:jaʔk].

★ The vowel /ʌ̃/ is written 'en', as in ''one'' 'énska' [ʌ̃ska].

★ The vowel /ũ/ is written 'on', as in ''eight'' 'sha’té:kon' [shaʔdɛ:gũ].

Stress, Length, and Tone

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.

★ Short-high tone usually (but not always) appears in closed syllables or before /h/. It is written with an acute accent: ''stick'' 'kánhia', ''road'' 'oháha'.

★ Long-high tone generally occurs in open syllables. It is written with a combination acute accent and colon: ''town'' 'kaná:ta', ''man'' 'rón:kwe'. Notice that when it is one of the nasal vowels which is long, the colon appears after the 'n'.

★ Long-falling tone is the result of the word stress falling on a vowel which comes before a /ʔ/ or /h/ + a consonant (there may be, of course, exceptions to this and other rules). The underlying /ʔ/ or /h/ re-appears when stress is placed elsewhere. It is written with a grave accent and colon: ''stomach'' 'onekwèn:ta' (from /onekwʌʔta/).

Grammar

Mohawk expresses a large number of pronominal distinctions: person (1st, 2nd, 3rd), number (singular, dual, plural), gender (masculine, feminine, neuter, inanimate) and inclusivity/exclusivity on the first person dual and plural. Pronominal information is encoded in prefixes on the verbs, rather than given as separate pronoun words; there are two main paradigms of pronominal prefixes: intransitive and transitive.

Learning Mohawk

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:

★ ''Kanyen'keha Tewatati (Let's Speak Mohawk)'' by David Kanatawakhon Maracle (ISBN 0-88432-723-X) (Book and 3 companion tapes are available from Audio Forum) (high school/college level)

★ ''A Grammar of Akwesasne Mohawk'' by Nancy Bonvillain (Available from Schoenhofs) (professional level)

★ ''Sathahitáhkhe' Kanien'kéha (Introductory Level Mohawk Language Textbook, Eastern Dialect)'' by Chris W. Harvey (ISBN 0-968-38142-1; available from Schoenhofs) (high school/college level)

★ ''Kanien'kéha Iakorihonnién:nis'' by Josephine S. Horne (Book and 5 companion CDs are available from [email:kor@korkahnawake.org Kahnawà:ke Cultural Center]) (secondary/high school level)

★ ''Mohawk: A Teaching Grammar'' by Nora Deering & Helga Harries Delisle (Book and 6 companion tapes are available from [email:kor@korkahnawake.org Kahnawà:ke Cultural Center]) (high school/college level)

References

1. Mohawk Language Standardization Project. http://www.kanienkehaka.com/msp/msp.htm

External links

★ Free Mohawk Translators with tools to build your own

★ Mohawk Language Dictionary and Virtual Teachers

★ Mohawk - English Dictionary

★ Ethnologue

★ Mohawk language, alphabet and pronunciation from Omniglot