Mohawk Dutch is an extinct Dutch-based creole language mainly spoken during the 17th century west of

Albany, New York Albany ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. It is located on the west bank of the Hudson River, about south of its confluence with the Mohawk River. Albany is the oldes ...

, in the area around the

Mohawk River The Mohawk River is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed October 3, 2011 river in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. It is the largest tributary of the Hudson R ...

, by the Dutch colonists who traded with or to a lesser extent mixed with the local population from the

Mohawk nation The Mohawk, also known by their own name, (), are an Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Indigenous people of North America and the easternmost nation of the Haudenosaunee, or Iroquois Confederacy (also known as the Five Nations or later the ...

. At the height of the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands's North American colony of

New Netherland New Netherland () was a colony of the Dutch Republic located on the East Coast of what is now the United States. The claimed territories extended from the Delmarva Peninsula to Cape Cod. Settlements were established in what became the states ...

, there were 18 languages spoken within Dutch-controlled territory. Dutch settlers frequently married indigenous women, most commonly from the Mohawk, with whom they were strong allies. The resulting children often drifted between the territory of the

Iroquois Confederacy The Iroquois ( ), also known as the Five Nations, and later as the Six Nations from 1722 onwards; alternatively referred to by the Endonym and exonym, endonym Haudenosaunee ( ; ) are an Iroquoian languages, Iroquoian-speaking Confederation#Ind ...

and New Netherland, forming among themselves a creole taking elements from both languages. One lullaby purported to be in Mohawk Dutch was recorded as part of the research for the Dictionary of American Regional English; it is mostly German with one Dutch diminutive suffix (whose German equivalent also occurs), one Dutch word and one word ("baby") that probably comes from a local language.

References

{{reflist Dutch-based pidgins and creoles Dutch language in the United States Mohawk culture Iroquois culture Extinct languages of North America

See also

References