Locale Moh Ca

Reference data for the Mohawk (Canada) locale — endonym Kanien'kéha (Kanata), written in the Latin script, left-to-right (LTR).

Identifiers

• BCP 47 tag: moh-CA
• ISO 639-1: not assigned
• ISO 639-3: moh
• Script: Latn (Latin)
• Region: CA (Canada)
• Text direction: ltr — left-to-right (LTR)

Speakers (approximate)

• L1 (native): 3,000
• L2 (additional): 7,000
• L1+L2 (total): 10,000

Pluralization

CLDR has no explicit plural rule defined for this language; it falls back to the root rule of a single other category (1 form) — every count uses the same word form, as in Japanese or Chinese.

See Unicode Messageformat for writing plural messages using these categories.

Translating into this locale

Mohawk (Kanien’kéha) is an Iroquoian language of the Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) people in Canada and the United States. It is polysynthetic, with long verbs that express a whole clause. Spelling differs somewhat by community; confirm the community standard before translating. This guidance is lower-confidence; have a fluent reviewer from the community check it.

Translate ideas, not words.

• Translate meaning into Mohawk grammar. Do not translate English word for word: English nouns, adjectives, and prepositions are often expressed as parts of a verb.
• Use community terminology for new concepts rather than coining or borrowing English forms where the community has agreed terms.
• Respect cultural protocols for greetings (Sken:nen, Shé:kon) and traditional teachings; consult community language programs for ceremonial and cultural content.

Grammar.

• Verbs carry prefixes and suffixes for the subject, object, tense, aspect, and incorporated nouns.
• Pronominal prefixes distinguish more categories than English, including inclusive and exclusive "we" and a distinction between masculine, feminine-indefinite, and neuter-type subjects.

Orthography and typography.

• The glottal stop is written with an apostrophe and long vowels or stress with a colon or accents (Kanien’kéha, Kahnawà:ke). Use the modifier letter apostrophe (U+02BC) or the community convention consistently, and keep the colon and accents.
• Follow the publisher's or community's conventions for dates, numbers, and quotation marks.

Common pitfalls

• Dropping the glottal stop, colon, or accents.
• Translating word for word from English.
• Using a spelling that does not match the community.

Learn more

• Locale for BCP 47 identifiers, locale-sensitive formatting, pluralization, and text-direction concepts that apply across all locales.
• Unicode Messageformat for writing plural/selection messages correctly for this locale's grammar.
• Community language programs in Kahnawà:ke, Akwesasne, and Tyendinaga
• Mohawk language teaching materials from Kanien’kehá:ka communities