A 17th-century account of Mohawk

Francis P. Dinneen
Georgetown University
Summary

Jacques Bruyas (c.l630-c.l701) left a set of notes on Mohawk in the late 1600s which were published in 1862. His account and work done on the language in the 20th century are compared. Where he fails to record all the sound-contrasts that are functional in the language and is unable to cope with allophones, modern workers may still disagree on how best to represent them. His lack of models for the description of a polysynthetic language, with a modest phonemic inventory, but complex morphophonemics, obscures morphemic boundaries. Bruyas had the reputation among contemporaries of being equally fluent in French and Mohawk, yet his notes fail to mention factors that are obviously frequent, complex and demanded for accurate communication. While the vocabulary in his account is perhaps better handled than in modern works, the selection is more guided by human interest than grammatical relevance.

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