Letter to the editor:

Response from the Editor:

Indian Time Newspaper has received several questions from readers wondering about why there are two different spellings used for the Akwesasne/Ahkwesahsne. To respond to these questions we have asked several language experts within the territory and here are a few responses.

“It’s in the phonics how to spell the words.

Read this and sound it out...

Ah kwe sah s ne (uh gway zuhs nay)

A kwe sas ne (a gway za s nay )

It’s like She:kon  (say goon)

and Se:kon (zay goon)”

“The first spelling is how almost everyone sees and spells it. Outsiders and non-speakers or readers are intimidated and have a hard time spelling according to the phonetics.  ‘Akwesasne’ has been spelled that way for years, which was before the “H’s” were put in.  The “H’s” are what linguists call ‘aspirations,’ which ARE there when you say it.  

I believe Mary McDonald put those in when she worked for MCA & AMBE in the language area years ago.  We teach our language that way now so that the new learners will pronounce the written Kanien’keha words correctly.

Example: Akwesasne, phonetically would be pronounced ‘A gwe zawz neh’ - I would spell it A khwe sahs hne to be pronounced as it should be.  As you can see the Ahkwesahsne as it is spelled on the Canadian side of our territory (sometimes) is closer to the correct pronunciation.  I hope this has helped you.

Here is another example on the use and non-use of the ‘h’s’ (aspirations) and glottal (‘):

rohthare - he is talking   ro’tare - he has o’ta( you know what o’ta is) on him   In all of the writings of old there were no “H’s” or glottal and it would be spelled ‘rotare’, so you had to be a speaker to know in which context it was meant to be used.  

The diacritic marks, and the “H’s” ARE important.”

We here at Indian Time hope that this helps our readers who have also been wondering about the difference in spelling. Nia:wen to our experts who supplied responses to this question.

Kyrie A. Ransom