Mohawk language
From Academic Kids
Mohawk is a Native American language spoken in the United States and Canada. It is part of the Iroquoian family.
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Phonology
Based on sound files available at http://www.ohwejagehka.com/lang.htm, the phoneme inventory appears to be as follows (using IPA notation):
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Consonants
- There are no bilabials (unless one counts /w/ as labial rather than velar).
- It is unclear whether aspiration is phonemic or a realization of C + /h/; probably the latter as ‘nh’ is /n/ + /h/, and ‘sh’ is /s/ + /h/ (not IPA Template:IPA).
- Listening to the syllabification of careful speech suggests that orthographic "ts" is indeed an affricate, since "tsh" corresponds to IPA Template:IPA — though it raises the question of why not use a single symbol for each of these? (After all, with such a small inventory, there are lots of Latin letters available!)
| Dental | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stop | Template:IPA | Template:IPA | Template:IPA | |
| Affricate | Template:IPA | Template:IPA | ||
| Fricative | Template:IPA | Template:IPA | ||
| Nasal | Template:IPA | |||
| Liquids | Template:IPA | Template:IPA |
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Vowels
- Length is contrastive.
- Nasalization is contrastive.
- There appear to be a high and low tone. (See tonal language.)
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| High | Template:IPA | ||
| Mid | Template:IPA | Template:IPA | |
| Low | a |
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External links
- Mohawk - English Dictionary (http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definition/Mohawk-english/)de:Mohawk (Sprache)
