Mohican language

Mohican (also known as Mahican, not to be confused with Mohegan, Mahican: Mã’eekaneeweexthowãakan) is a language of the Eastern Algonquian subgroup of the Algonquian language family, itself a member of the Algic language family.^[3] It was spoken in the territory of present-day eastern New York state and Vermont by the Mohican people but is believed to have been extinct since the 1930s. However, since the late 2010s, the language is being revived, with adults learning the language, and children being raised having Mohican as their first language.^[4]

Mohican
Mã’eekaneeweexthowãakan
Native to	United States
Region	New York, Vermont
Extinct	ca. 1940
Revival	2010s onward
Language family	Algic Algonquian Eastern Algonquian Delawaran^[1]^[2] Mohican
Language codes
ISO 639-3	mjy
Glottolog	mahi1248

History

Aboriginally, speakers of Mohican lived along the upper Hudson River in New York State, extending as far north as Lake Champlain, east to the Green Mountains in Vermont, and west near Schoharie Creek in New York State.^[5] Conflict with the Mohawk of the Iroquois Confederacy in competition for the fur trade, and European encroachment, triggered displacement of the Mohicans, some moving to west-central New York, where they shared land with the Oneida. After a series of dislocations, some Mohicans were forced to relocate to Wisconsin in the 1820s and 1830s, while others moved to several communities in Canada, where they lost their Mohican identity.

The Mohican language became extinct in the early twentieth century, with the last recorded documentation of Mahican made in the 1930s.^[6]

Dialects

Two distinct Mohican dialects have been identified, Moravian and Stockbridge.^[7] These two dialects emerged after 1740 as aggregations arising from the dislocation of Mohican and other groups. The extent of Mohican dialect variation prior to this period is uncertain.

The Stockbridge dialect emerged at Stockbridge, Massachusetts, and included groups of New York Mohican, and members of other linguistic groups such as Wappinger (a once-large Munsee-speaking tribe south of the Mohican), Housatonic, Wawyachtonoc, and others. After a complex migration history, the Stockbridge group moved to Wisconsin, where they combined with Munsee Lenape migrants from southwestern Ontario. They are now known as the Stockbridge-Munsee tribe.^[8]

The Moravian dialect arose from population aggregations centred at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Some Mohican groups that had been affiliated from about 1740 with the Moravian Church, in New York and Connecticut, moved in 1746 to Bethlehem. Another group affiliated with the Moravians moved to Wyoming, Pennsylvania. Subsequent to several members being massacred by white settlers, some members of these groups fled to Canada with Munsee Moravian converts, ultimately settling at what is now Moraviantown, where they have completely merged with the dominant Lenape population. Another group moved to Ohsweken at Six Nations, Ontario, where they merged with other groups at that location.^[9]

Phonology and documentation

Mohican linguistic materials consist of a variety of materials collected by missionaries, linguists, and others, including an eighteenth-century manuscript dictionary compiled by Johann Schmick, a Moravian missionary.^[10] In the twentieth century, linguists Truman Michelson and Morris Swadesh collected some Mohican materials from surviving speakers in Wisconsin.^[11]

Mohican historical phonology has been studied based upon the Schmick dictionary manuscript, tracing the historical changes affecting the pronunciation of words between Proto-Algonquian and the Moravian dialect of Mohican, as reflected in Schmick’s dictionary.^[12] The similarities between Mohican and the Delaware languages Munsee and Unami have been acknowledged in studies of Mohican linguistic history. In one classification Mohican and the Delaware languages are assigned to a Delawaran subgroup of Eastern Algonquian.^[1]

Mohican Consonant Sounds^[13]

	Labial	Alveolar	Palato- alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Labio- velar	Uvular	Glottal
Nasal	m	n
Stop	p	t			k	kʷ
Affricate		ts	tʃ
Fricative		s	ʃ		x		χ	h
Approximant				j		w

Vowel sounds

/a, ã, aː, ʌ, ʌ̃, ɛ, ə, e, ɪ, i, ɔ, o, u, aɪ, aʊ/

Examples of Mohican words

The table below presents a sample of Mohican words, written first in a linguistically oriented transcription, followed by the same words written in a practical system that has been used in the linguistically related dialect of Munsee.^[14] The linguistic system uses a raised dot (·) to indicate vowel length. Although stress is mostly predictable, the linguistic system uses the acute accent to indicate predictable main stress. As well, predictable voiceless or murmured /ă/ is indicated with the breve accent (˘). Similarly, the breve accent is used to indicate an ultra-short [ə] that typically occurs before a single voiced consonant followed by a vowel.^[15] The practical system indicates vowel length by doubling the vowel letter, and maintains the linɡuistic system's practices for marking stress and voiceless/ultra-short vowels. The practical system uses orthographic ⟨sh⟩ for the phonetic symbol /š/, and ⟨ch⟩ for the phonetic symbol /č/.^[16]

Comparison of linguistic and practical orthographies for Mohican

Linguistic	Practical	English		Linguistic	Practical	English		Linguistic	Practical	English		Linguistic	Practical	English
xí·kan	xíikan	knife		təmahí·kan	tmahíikan	ax		ntah	ndah	my heart		sí·pəw	síipuw	river
kə̆tahəwá·nun	ktahwáanun	I love you		wəmí·san	wmíisan	His older sister		ni·táhkan	niitáhkan	My older brother		nəyáh nkí·spih	nuyáh ngíispih	I am full
stá·w	stáaw	fire		tá·páwá·š	táapáwáash	seven		mpəy	mbuy	water		nətahəwá·tamun	ndahwáatamun	I love it
wəná·yəw	wunáayuw	he is good		ahtá·w	ahtáaw	It is there		kíhkayi·t	kíhkayiit	chief		máxkw	máxkw	bear
wtayá·tamun	wtayáatamun	He requires or wants it		nəmá·sak	nmáasak	fish (plural)		na·ní·wi·	naaniiwih	nine		só·kəná·n	sóoknaan	It is raining

Numbers
ngwútah	one
níisah	two
naxáh	three
náawah	four
náanan	five
ngwútaash	six
taapáwaash	seven
xáasoh	eight
naaníiwih	nine
mdáanut	ten

See also

• Mohicans
• Stockbridge-Munsee Community

Notes

1. Pentland, David, 1992, p. 15; Goddard, Ives, 1996, p. 5
2. Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin; Bank, Sebastian (2022-05-24). "Delawaran". Glottolog. Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. from the original on 2022-10-30. Retrieved 2022-10-29.
3. Raymond G. Gordon Jr., ed. 2005.
4. Vaisvilas, Frank. "How the lost Mohican language is being revived in Wisconsin with help from a New York initiative". Green Bay Press-Gazette. Retrieved 2022-12-28.
5. Brasser, Ted, 1978
6. Goddard, Ives, 1978, p. 71.
7. Pentland, David, 1992, p. 15
8. Brasser, Ted, 1978, pp. 207-210
9. Brasser, Ted, 1978, p. 208
10. Masthay, Carl, 1992
11. Michelson, Truman, 1914.
12. Pentland, David, 1992
13. Masthay, Carl, 1991, p. 15-26
14. Goddard, Ives, 1982; O'Meara, John, 1996
15. See Goddard, Ives, 1982, p. 19 for further detail
16. O'Meara, John, 1996

References

• Joh. Jac. Schmick, Miscellanea linguae nationis Indicae Mahikan, American Philosophical Society Archives.
• Brasser, Ted. 1978. "Mahican." Bruce Trigger, ed., Handbook of North American Indians, Volume 15, Northeast, pp. 198–212. Washington: Smithsonian Institution. OCLC 26140074
• Campbell, Lyle. 1997. American Indian languages: The historical linguistics of Native America. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-509427-1.
• Campbell, Lyle; & Mithun, Marianne, eds. 1979. The languages of native America: Historical and comparative assessment. Austin: University of Texas Press. ISBN 0-292-74624-5.
• Campbell, Lyle; & Mithun, Marianne. (979. "Introduction: North American Indian historical linguistics in current perspective." In L. Campbell & M. Mithun, eds., The languages of native America: Historical and comparative assessment, pp. 3–69. Austin: University of Texas Press. ISBN 9780292746244
• Goddard, Ives. 1978. "Eastern Algonquian Languages." Bruce Trigger, ed., Handbook of North American Indians, Volume 15, Northeast, pp. 70–77. Washington: Smithsonian Institution.
• Goddard, Ives. 1996. "Introduction." Ives Goddard, ed., The Handbook of North American Indians, Volume 17. Languages, pp. 1–16. Washington, D.C.: The Smithsonian Institution. OCLC 26140074
• Goddard, Ives. 1999. Native languages and language families of North America (rev. and enlarged ed. with additions and corrections). [Map]. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press (Smithsonian Institution). (Updated version of the map in Goddard 1996). ISBN 0-8032-9271-6.
• Goddard, Ives. 2009. Notes on Mahican: Dialects, Sources, Phonemes, Enclitics, and Analogies. In Karl Hele and Regna Darnell (eds.), Papers of the 39th Algonquian Conference, 246-315. London, Ontario: The University of Western Ontario.
• Masthay, Carl, ed. Schmick's Mahican Dictionary. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society. ISBN 9780871691972
• Michelson, Truman. 1914. ["Notes on the Stockbridge Language."] Manuscript No. 2734, National Anthropological Archives. Smithsonian Institution. Washington, DC
• Mithun, Marianne. (1999). The languages of Native North America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-23228-7 (hbk); ISBN 0-521-29875-X (pbk).
• Pentland, David. 1992. "Mahican historical phonology." Carl Masthay, ed. Schmick's Mahican Dictionary, pp. 15–27. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society. ISBN 9780871691972

External links

• Mohican Language Resource
• Stockbridge-Munsee Community
• OLAC resources in and about the Mohican language