A Thousand Words of Mohawk

Alternate Language Names

Kanien’kéha, Kanyen’kéha.

Region

Ontario and Quebec, Canada; New York, United States.

Who

Gunther Michelson.

Others Involved

M.K. Foster (Foreword); Mae Montour, Frank Natawe, Mike Norton, Louis Curotte (Speakers); Michael Foster (National Museum of Man).

Publishing Information

Published 1973 by the National Museum of Man, National Museums of Canada as part of the Mercury Series’ Ethnology division, Paper No. 5.

How People are Cited

People are cited in the Foreword and Preface.

How Information is Cited

Speakers and previously published materials accessed in creating this dictionary are cited in the Preface.

Where is Information Coming from

Information in this dictionary primarily comes from speakers who worked with the author during his fieldwork in Kahnawake (referred to in the dictionary by the anglicized name Caughnawaga) between 1961 and 1971. The author also accessed Floyd Lounsbury’s Oneida Verb Morphology (1953) to create this dictionary.

Tools and Framework used

This dictionary is available as both a physical and digital book.

Access

The physical dictionary is accessible through libraries. The digital version is accessible on JSTOR through some institutional libraries or a JSTOR membership. It can also be purchased as a PDF from the University of Ottawa Press for $11.99 CAD.

Included Languages and Directionality

Mohawk to English; English to Mohawk.

Dialects Included

This dictionary includes information from the Eastern dialect of Mohawk.

Type of Dictionary

This dictionary is a bilingual, bidirectional dictionary.

How are Entries Organised

Entries in the Mohawk to English Particle and Roots List are organized alphabetically by Mohawk. The head word of each entry is either a bound morpheme (i.e., the smallest meaningful part of a word that must be connected to another morpheme to form a word) or root (i.e., a part of the word which has meaning on its own but can have other morphemes added to adjust it) in Mohawk followed by the English meaning. The Mohawk head word contains hyphens to indicate whether it is a bound morpheme or a root. If the head word is a bound morpheme, there is a note on how the morpheme is used in the language (i.e., part of speech and what type of term it connects to) below the head word. Below this, there are related words (if the head word is a root) or words which use the bound morpheme listed, first written in Mohawk followed by the English translation. Some entries also contain cross references.

Entries in the English to Mohawk List are organized alphabetically by English and contain the English head word followed by the Mohawk morpheme which that English word is either listed under as a word which uses a bound morpheme or directly translates from the Mohawk root. No other information is included in these entries.

Prior to the dictionary portion of the resource there is a brief grammatical introduction to the Mohawk language. This section includes information about the Mohawk sound system, word and sentence structure, and verb usage; the latter of which occupies majority of this section. The verb classes discussed include pre-pronominal prefixes, pronominal prefixes, reflexive and reciprocal, incorporated noun root, verb root, and suffixes, illustrating some of the variant forms possible within each. At the end of this section there is a brief description of the dialectical differences between the Eastern and Western varieties of Mohawk.

Other Features