Mohican language

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

Mohican (also known as Mahican, not to be confused with

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]

History

Aboriginally, speakers of Mohican lived along the upper

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-Munsee tribe.^[8]

The Moravian dialect arose from population aggregations centred 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

Notes

^ ^a ^b Pentland, David, 1992, p. 15; Goddard, Ives, 1996, p. 5
^ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin; Bank, Sebastian (2022-05-24). "Delawaran". Glottolog. Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. Archived from the original on 2022-10-30. Retrieved 2022-10-29.
^ Raymond G. Gordon Jr., ed. 2005.
^ 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.
^ Brasser, Ted, 1978
^ Goddard, Ives, 1978, p. 71.
^ Pentland, David, 1992, p. 15
^ Brasser, Ted, 1978, pp. 207-210
^ Brasser, Ted, 1978, p. 208
^ Masthay, Carl, 1992
^ Michelson, Truman, 1914.
^ Pentland, David, 1992
^ Masthay, Carl, 1991, p. 15-26
^ Goddard, Ives, 1982; O'Meara, John, 1996
^ See Goddard, Ives, 1982, p. 19 for further detail
^ O'Meara, John, 1996