Amherst Street is now Atateken
Amherst Street has been given a new name: Atateken, which the mayor says means “brothers and sisters” in Kanien’kéha (Mohawk). Clicking on the graphic in the mayor’s tweet demonstrates how to pronounce the word.
Amherst Street has been given a new name: Atateken, which the mayor says means “brothers and sisters” in Kanien’kéha (Mohawk). Clicking on the graphic in the mayor’s tweet demonstrates how to pronounce the word.
jeather 11:58 on 2019-06-21 Permalink
Easy to pronounce, too, especially if you (unlike me) remember that in most cases t/k are pronounced d/g.
Blork 12:10 on 2019-06-21 Permalink
So it’s spelled “Atateken” but pronounced “AdaDEgon.” Given that the 26‑letter Roman alphabet isn’t “native” to Native American languages, why not spell it phonetically? Who’s idea was it to randomly use incorrect letters when applying the Roman alphabet to Native languages? What is the point of that?
EmilyG 12:13 on 2019-06-21 Permalink
I think that in general, many languages have sounds that aren’t heard in languages that use the Roman alphabet, so trying to use the Roman alphabet to spell words with these sounds is a bit of a compromise.
jeather 12:20 on 2019-06-21 Permalink
The vowels are pretty standard, no reason to use English’s weirdo vowel choices. I’m not sure why they chose t/k and not d/g when they chose an alphabet, presumably they felt the sounds that they use sounded to them like t/k and not d/g, as they are the same sound. (I believe at the end of the word or before another consonant they come out as t/k.)
It’s hard to give examples of this in English because we naturally use the same letter for something we consider the same sound, even if other languages distinguish that. T in top vs stop (p in pot vs spot, k in kit vs skit) — same letter in English, different letters in Hindi. L in long vs full, same letter in English, different in (iirc) Gaelic. Even the thing about “about” in Canadian English, same sound to us, different to other people, though again, vowel. (I was an adult before I figured out that the song wasn’t “Paperback rider” and it made a lot more sense. Incidentally that t/d sound between two vowels is ALSO a separate letter in other languages.)
david100 12:25 on 2019-06-21 Permalink
Pretty cool name. Will be mispronounced for eternally.
Blork 12:35 on 2019-06-21 Permalink
I actually like the name, but as david100 says, it will be mispronounced forever.
I understand that different letters sound different in different languages. But when applying the Roman alphabet to Native AMERICAN languages, you’d think that English (being the primary European-based language in use in Canada and the US) would be the “template” they use. It doesn’t matter if some African language or some Scandinavian language pronounces “t” differently; this is the translation of a North American language into the written characters used by most North Americans.
This is basic usability engineering. But I suspect the alphabetization of native languages was probably done by academics who had zero sense of usability engineering, which is too bad because it means FAIL over and over.
david100 12:35 on 2019-06-21 Permalink
*eternity
Blork 12:36 on 2019-06-21 Permalink
…and FWIW, “t” is basically “t” in both Spanish and French, so WTF?
Michael Black 13:04 on 2019-06-21 Permalink
I like it, it even invoked the song “If I had a Hammer”.
I’ve been trying to learn some Okanagan words, I’ll never speak the language at my age but I’d like to know some key words.
So while I can spell a few, I haven’t a clue how to pronounce them, because there are odd accents on them. But one thing I’m planning is to leave some money for the preservation of the Syilx language.
Hope I Is probably right, academics have tried to put the languages in a written firm, when they’ve just been oral until recent decades. I think that’s changing, lots of young bat be academics coming along to take control.
I think I mentioned in the past that in order to make the languages relevant, they have to include words that are relevant today. So they try to use traditional words to describe them, rather than just add new words.
The Cabot Square Project is running again this sumjer, starting with today’s concert, which includes Moe Clarke who just by being Metis at the Fring e Festival 11 years ago made me find family history. But weekly activities all sunner, like making researchers ( which may not be traditional for any of the people) and soapstone carvijng, and hoop dancing. Worth hanging out there, if for no other reason than it’s not just people likely to get tickets.
Michael
jeather 13:22 on 2019-06-21 Permalink
Google suggests that the initial latinisation was done by Jesuits (who probably used French and Latin for vowel sounds, which are incidentally shared with pretty much every other language that uses this alphabet except English, so, better choice) and that the spelling was standardised by the community in 1993. Since t/d and k/g are chosen based only on their location in a word, it would be absurd to have all four consonants such that morphemes change spelling (we don’t do it English either — cats and dogs not dogz, electric and electricity, etc etc etc; not that English is exactly the example to go to for re standardising spellings); I assume that the choice of t/k over d/g is because the base sound is t/k and it becomes d/g when too close to a vowel.
I am sure “easy to divine the pronunciation from the spelling for non-speakers of the language” was not even on the list when they were planning.
Ian Rogers 15:00 on 2019-06-21 Permalink
Ask a person from Mississauga, a person from Hamilton, and a person from DDO how to pronounce “Toronto” – you’ll get 3 different versions.
Bill Binns 15:04 on 2019-06-21 Permalink
Maybe they will hang the translation guide up there with the street sign.
qatzelok 23:14 on 2019-06-21 Permalink
Amherst was hard to pronounce in French as well, and plus, he was a genocidal pr*ck.
Kate 13:06 on 2019-06-22 Permalink
Oh come on, four syllables, how hard can it be?
Anyway, it’ll be another to add to Lionel-Groulx and Pie-IX as a challenge to tourists.
Michael Black 09:14 on 2019-06-24 Permalink
In somewhat related news, there’s a story at the CBC that the BMO has changed the plaque that marked the killing of an Iroquois chief to one honoring the Mohawk nation. A tweet, I don’t see a story.
Michael
Kate 11:21 on 2019-06-24 Permalink
Michael, I saw the story as well and it’s mentioned briefly in this piece from Turtle Island News. Also a new street in the postindustrial part of Lachine being refashioned into a residential area will be called Skaniatarati Avenue, from the Mohawk word for “on the other side”.