Mike Ayers a Ãcrit :
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Behalf Of Chris Harvey > Sent: Friday, July 02, 2004 11:17 AM
> Perhaps one could think of "Ha Tinh" as the English word for > the city, like "Rome" (English) for "Roma" (Italian), or > Tokyo (English) for "TÅkyÅ" (English transliteration of
"TÅkyÅ" is not an English transliteration of Japanese, as it uses diacritics not found in English. The correct English transliteration is in fact "Tokyo", which does not round trip.
> Japanese), or Kahnawake (English/French) for KahnawÃ:ke
Errr - didn't the Emglish/French useage predate the Mohawk alphabet? Pretty perverse case there.
Yes, the Mohwak alphabet certainly Âpostdates the French transcriptions.
Just a few pieces of information about Mohawk (Agnier in its traditional French form) names around Montreal (Kanesatake North Shore, Kahnawake South Shore) :
1) Heard one of the Mohawk leaders speak on the radio the other day and he pronounced the K of Kanesatake as KanÃsatÃguà for my French ear, which seems to be validated by the old French spelling Canessedage (first attested in 1695), the name was first used apparently when the Agniers found refuge at the foot of Mont Royal on MontrÃal Island than already occupied by the French for quite a time before the Sulpicians moved them to another area ouside Montreal. The French adopted Oka (an Algonquian name, if I recall properly) to designate the same place the Mohawk named Kanesatake.
2) As far as Kahnawake is concerned the settlement occurred again while the French had settled the area (long story but the small group of Mohawk that had converted to Catholicism and found refuge around Montreal went through several settlements before settling in Kahnawake), at the same time the priests and French settlers that accompagnied the Mohawk called the place (now Kahnawake) Saint-FranÃois-Xavier-du-Sault or simply Le Sault. In Mohawk (agnier) the present-day Kahnawake was respectively called Kahnawake ( au rapide Â,  by the rapids Â), in 1676, Kahnawakon, ( dans le rapide Â,  in the rapids Â), in 1690, Kanatakwenke, ( d'oà on est parti Â,  whence we left Â), in 1696 and Caughnawaga, in 1716 and many other spellings thereafter until 1980 when Kahnawake was chosen as the official spelling.
P. A.
