Mohawk (Kanien’keha)
Mohawk is an Iroquoian language with about 3,350 speakers, most of whom are
elderly, though there are younger speakers in some areas. There are six
Mohawk-speaking communities: Tyendinaga, Wáhta, and
Ohswé:ken in Ontario; Kahnawà:ke and
Kanehsatà:ke in Quebec, and Ahkwesáhsne in
Quebec, Ontario and New York State.
The native name for the Mohawk language, Kanien’keha, means
‘people of the flint’. The term Mohawk comes from a name meaing ‘man-eaters’
used by their Algonquian enemies.
Mohawk was first written by French missionaries in the early 18th. They
devised a spelling system based on French pronunciation and used it to
produce Mohawk translations of various religious and legal documents.
Mohawk has been taught in schools since 1970, and in 1972, a group of
educators, translators and Elders developed an orthography for the language.
Several other spelling systems have been used for Mohawk.
A standard form of written Mohawk was agreed on at the Mohawk Language
Standardisation Conference, held in August 1993 at Tyendinaga.
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