Learning Mohawk With Saint Kateri

Shauna’h Fuegen shares how to pronounce Saint Kateri’s name and other Mohawk words in her Native language.

My dad started studying Mohawk when I was 7 years old. He’d always used some words and phrases with us when I was younger, learned from years spent with friends and family from Six Nations Reserve in Ontario, but his command of the language really took off once he was attending classes. I remember listening to his language-learning cassette tapes in the car while he drove us anywhere. My favorite was the lesson on animals and the noises they make.

It is not easy to learn an Indigenous language as an adult, particularly if you do not live in or close to your tribal community. Our family left Six Nations in 1924, after the overthrow of the traditional hereditary chiefs for an elected council loyal to the Canadian government. They moved across the border to Niagara Falls, NY, and my grandfather was the first member of our family born in the United States. Living off-reserve meant being separated from beloved family and friends and made it challenging to access Mohawk language-learning resources that were now nearly a 2-hour drive away. In the winter of 1991, my dad made that drive weekly, sometimes bringing my grandfather with him to visit family while Dad was in class.

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I’m grateful to have had exposure to my tribal language, even though we grew up away from our community. I’ve become even more appreciative of it in the wake of Saint Kateri Tekakwitha’s canonization in 2012, because now I have the opportunity to teach curious Catholics how to pronounce her name in Mohawk. In honor of her feast day today, try learning to pronounce Saint Kateri's name!

Some letters in the Mohawk alphabet sound quite a bit different than letters in the English alphabet. For our purposes, here are the biggest differences:

K’s are pronounced like G’s. T’s are pronounced like D’s. R’s are pronounced like L’s. Using that formula, Saint Kateri Tekakwitha’s name sounds like gah-day-lee day-gah-gwee-dah. It’s important to layer in the Mohawk accents and grammar in her name, because that gives us the key to decoding where to emphasize the syllables and pacing. Káteri Tekahkwí:tha thus becomes GAH-day-lee Day-gah-GWEE-dah. The accents over the A and I indicate where the stress should be placed, and the colon in Tekahkwí:tha means that there is a slight pause before the final syllable. You can hear my pronunciation below.

Pronunciation and spelling often varies from community to community, so you may hear some differences from Mohawk speakers depending on where they are from. I was taught to say her name with slightly different emphasis, for example, which my dad attributes to a difference in dialect between Six Nations and standard Mohawk pronunciations found in the communities at Akwesasne and Kahnawá:ke (where Saint Kateri spent her final years), among others.

Speaking of Kahnawá:ke, let’s practice your Mohawk pronunciation using our formula. Remember, K’s are G’s. Give it a try before listening to my pronunciation below! How’d you do? It should sound like gah-nah-WAH-gay.

Let’s learn one final word that would have been fundamental to Saint Kateri’s vocabulary: Kanien’kehá:ka, the name of her Mohawk people. The only new pronunciation rule is that the I next to the -en makes a Y sound here, like -yen. Give it a shot! It sounds like gahn-yen-gay-HAH-gah.

Káteri Tekahkwí:tha was a Kanien’kehá:ka woman who lived and died at Kahnawá:ke. How’d that go? The next time you pray for Saint Kateri’s intercession, try using your new Mohawk words with her. I’m certain she’ll be delighted.

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The next time you pray for St. Kateri’s intercession, try using your new Mohawk words with her. #CatholicMom

If you want to learn more about Saint Kateri’s life, culture, and devotion to her faith, you can walk with me through 9 Days With Saint Kateri, an email series and novena.

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