Mohawk phonology

The phoneme inventory of Mohawk is as follows (using the International Phonetic Alphabet). Phonological representation (underlying forms) are in /slashes/, and the standard Mohawk orthography is in bold.

Consonants

An interesting feature of Mohawk (and Iroquoian) phonology is that there are no labials (m, p, b, f, v), except in a few adoptions from French and English, where [m] and [p] appear (e.g., mátsis matches and aplám Abraham); these sounds are late additions to Mohawk phonology and were introduced after widespread European contact.

		Dental	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		n	m /ɲ/	ŋ
Plosive	voiceless	t	c	k	' /ʔ/
	voiced	d	p /ɟ/	ɡ
Affricate			b /d͡ʒ/
Sibilant	voiceless	s	ʃ
	voiced	z	ʒ
Fricative	voiceless	q /θ/	ç	x	h
	voiced	ð	f /ʝ/	ɣ	v /ɦ/
Approximant		l	j	w
Rhotic		r

The Central (Ahkwesáhsne) dialect has the following consonant clusters:

1st↓ · 2nd→	t	k	s	h	l	n	d͡ʒ	j	w
t	tt	tk	ts	th
k	kt	kk	ks	kh					kw
ʔ	ʔt	ʔk	ʔs		ʔl	ʔn	ʔd͡ʒ	ʔj	ʔw
s	st	sk	ss	sh	sl	sn		sj	sw
h	ht	hk	hs		hl	hn	hd͡ʒ	hj	hw
l				lh				lj
n				nh	nl			nj
d͡ʒ								d͡ʒj
w				wh

All clusters can occur word-medially; those on a red background can also occur word-initially.

The consonants /k/, /t/ and the clusters /ts kw/ are pronounced voiced before any voiced sound (i.e. a vowel or /j/). They are voiceless at the end of a word or before a voiceless sound. /s/ is voiced word initially and between vowels.

car – kà꞉sere [ˈɡàːzɛrɛ]

that – thí꞉ken [ˈthiːɡʌ̃]

hello, still – shé꞉kon [ˈshɛːɡũ]

Note that th and sh are pronounced as consonant clusters, not single sounds like in English thing and she.

Vowels

		Front	Central	Back
				unr.	rnd.
High	oral	i	ï /ɨ/		ü /u/
	nasal				u /ũ/
Mid-high		y /ɪ/			ʊ
Mid		e	ë /ə/	ö /ɤ̃/	o
Mid-low		ɛ		ʌ /ʌ̃/	ɔ
Low		æ	a	ä /ɑ/

i, e, a, and o are oral vowels, while ʌ̃ and ũ (see help:IPA) are nasalized; oral versions of ʌ̃ and ũ do not occur in the language.

External links

• Mohawk language