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What’s with this “Wren” thing?
The oldest extant version of the fable
we
are presenting here appeared in 1913 in the first volume of a two-volume anthology
of Low
Saxon folktales (Plattdeutsche
Volksmärchen “Low German Folktales”)
collected by Wilhelm Wisser (1843–1935). Read
more ...
Mohawk
Sa
Ga Yeath Qua Pieth Tow, one of four Mohawk
leaders that
traveled to London in 1710. This picture,
commissioned by Queen Anne (1665–1714),
was
painted by the Dutchman Jan Verelst
(ca.
1648–
1734).
Language information:
One of the earliest contacts between Mohawk and Europeans took place in 1634,
involving members of a Dutch exploration expedition. The Mohawk nation later
became an ally of
the Netherlands
at Albany.
The Mohawk are
a member of the Six Nations (Mohawk Ohswé:ken).
The name “Mohawk” goes back to Moackh, a man’s name German mercenaries mistook for the name of the people.
Kanien’ke, the
land of the Mohawk (Kanien’kehá:ka “People of the Flint”)
nowadays lies around Lake Ontario and St. Lawrence River (Kaniatarowanenneh), on both sides of the border between Canada and the
United States of America. The original
homeland
used to be farther south, centered roughly in the area of Albany (Skahnehtati) in
the State of New York (Kanon:no). The name Toronto
is based on Mohawk Ateronto, more precisely on tkeronto ‘fish weir’, literally “There are trees/poles in the water.”
Major concentrations
of Mohawk people are located in Quebec’s three great Mohawk and Cayuga reservations
Akwesasne
(Ahkwesáhsne,
formerly Saint-Régis), Kahnawake (Kahnawà:ke, formerly Caughnawaga) and Kanesatake (Kanehstà:ke, formerly Oka).
These days,
only about one tenth of ethnic Mohawks are proficient in their ancestral language.
In the United
States east of the Mississippi River there is nowadays only one indigenous language with more than one thousand speakers, and this language is Mohawk.
The Mohawk
language appears to be tonal, having a rising tone (´) and a falling tone
(`), and both vowel length
and nasalization have phonemic significance. In writing, a following colon (:)
shows that a vowel is long. The letter sequences en and on stand for nasal vowels ([] and [ũ] respectively). An apostrophe symbolizes a glottal stop. Unfortunately,
in casual writing, frequently also on web pages, vowel length and tone marks
tend
to
be omitted.
For centuries,
the
Mohawk’s language has been having major ongoing contacts with two European languages:
English and
French, in earlier history also with Dutch, and it has imported words from all
of
them.
Being a member
of the northern division of the Iroquoian (Rotinonhsyón:ni) language family,
Mohawk is related to Huron, Tuscarora, Wyandot, Nottoway, Laurentian, Onondaga,
Susquehannock,
Seneca,
Cayuga,
and most
closely
to Oneida, distantly also to South Iroquoian Tsalagi (Cherokee).
Genealogy: Iroquoian > Northern > Five Nations > Mohawk-Oneida
Historical Lowlands language contacts: Dutch, English, [Scots?]
Frontpage
] and [ũ] respectively). An apostrophe symbolizes a glottal stop. Unfortunately,
in casual writing, frequently also on web pages, vowel length and tone marks
tend
to
be omitted.