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Events

Kanyen’keha (Mohawk) Introductory Language Course (Outdoor Learning School & Store, Summer 2025, Online)

July 1, 2025 to August 19, 2025

  • Category: Course, Online
  • Region: Central Ontario, Eastern Ontario, GTA, Northern Ontario, Outside Ontario, Southern Ontario
  • Topic: Indigenous Education, Language Arts, Native Studies
  • Grades: Intermediate (grades 7-10), JK-SK, Junior (grades 4-6), Primary (grades 1-3), Senior (grades 11-12)

 

This course is open to everyone – Indigenous and non-Indigenous adults who wish to learn to uplift language revitalization. If you are a non-Indigenous language learner, we invite you to review these reflections on what it means to be a non-Indigenous learner in an Indigenous language learning course.

In this course we will introduce a little vocabulary and a lot of the grammatical structure of Kanyen’kéha (the “Mohawk” language). It begins with the sound system and alphabet and ends with students being able to introduce themselves, make complex statements, ask and answer questions. This course will be taught using the Ohswekén:’a, the Grand River dialect. The colonial names of the geographic regions that this course would be most applicable for are Ontario, Quebec and New York.

The material is learned and taught by Tahnee Bennett, a graduate student of Onkwawenna Kentyohkwa, an adult immersion program on the Six Nations Grand River Territory in southern Ontario. Onkwawenna Kentyohkwa was established in 1999 by Owennatekha (Brian Maracle) and Onekiyohstha (Audrey Maracle). The program has enabled dozens of people to become advanced-level speakers.

Tuesday afternoons, 4:30pm-6:00pm Eastern Time: July 1, 8, 15, 22, 29 / August 5, 12, 19 (we know that July 1 is Canada Day, but we thought this would be a pretty great day to launch this course)
Recorded and made available to registrants after for those who can’t attend live (available for 3 months after the session)