Marvel's newest superhero Kahhori speaks Kanien'kéha

The translation of the protagonist's name and others in an episode of the Marvel series What If…? has sparked some debate online about maintaining the authenticity of a language.

The episode What If... Kahhori Reshaped the World?, which began streaming on Disney Plus in December, features a Kanienkehà:ka (Mohawk) character named Kahhori, and is in Kanien'kéha (Mohawk language). 

"People [are] saying online that 'Kahhori' is gibberish. It doesn't mean anything. Well, yes, of course it means something," said Jeremy White, who voices the character Atahraks in the episode.

"Just because it's not spelled the way you would spell it doesn't make it incorrect."

White was born and raised in Kahnawà:ke, a Kanienkehà:ka community south of Montreal. He grew up with his grandparents — both fluent Kanien'kéha speakers — and attended a Mohawk immersion school until Grade 6.

White said he was recruited as a linguist supervisor by Deluxe, Disney's dubbing studio, to dub the project in Kanien'kéha. 

Years in the making

Kawennáhere Devery Jacobs, also from Kahnawà:ke, voices Kahhori whose name means "she stirs the forest." White said Jacobs worked closely with a language coach.

The episode is about what would happen if the power-bestowing Tesseract fell to Earth and landed in the territory of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy before the colonization of North America.

White said the episode was years in the making and that the writer for Disney, Ryan Little, put a lot of "love, care and respect" into the project.

In an emailed statement to CBC Indigenous, Little said it was important to showcase Mohawk people and that it was essential to present the episode in Kanien'kéha to honour and help support work in language preservation in Haudenosaunee communities.

Little said cultural consultants sourced the names Kahhori and Atahraks directly from an extensive list of Mohawk names by Charles Cooke, a famous Mohawk scholar. The manuscript was published in 1952.

White said the names in the manuscript were written phonetically without the diacritical markings used in Kanien'kéha today.

He said it made sense to use the same phonetic spelling for the characters in What If…? to allow a mainstream audience to pronounce it. 

Language and culture evolve over time which is why Kanien'kéha went from an oral language to one that could be written as well, White said. He said Atahraks is a real turtle clan name, and means "he gnaws the earth."

"He sees it as his role to lift others up and help them blossom … he's the one that welcomes new people to the Skyworld in the episode. He helps them adjust to the new life," White said.

Although Kanien'kéha is not spoken with the same intonation as in English — generally there is no rise and fall in the speech of first-language speakers — White said he wanted to embody the excitement Atahraks has for life, to bring his character to life.

Respect for naming conventions

Longhouse naming convention allows for one traditional name to be used at a time. When the holder of that name dies, the name becomes available. 

White said the traditional names used for the characters are not currently in use as far as he knows — a fact he said cultural consultants were brought in to confirm.

Cecelia King, 74, from Akwesasne, a Kanienkehà:ka community that straddles the Canada-U.S. border about 75 kilometres southeast of Ottawa, translated the episode.

She grew up speaking Kanien'kéha but was discouraged from speaking it while attending St. Regis Mohawk School as a young girl. 

She said this was the first time she's ever translated anything for broadcast despite teaching Kanien'kéha for 26 years.

"I'm hearing good responses from some of the community. Their young children really took to it because I think it might help them to learn the language," said King.

King said she had heard about some people being upset over use of the traditional longhouse names and wanted to respect their concerns by not duplicating a child's name.

"We're talking about entertainment here. We're not talking about a documentary," said White. 

"We're not trying to change the world. We're trying to change the representation of Natives and Indigenous people in the mainstream entertainment world."