ᒪᐢᑿ
maskwa
The Cree word for the English phrase 'bear' is ᒪᐢᑿ (maskwa).
The word ᒪᐢᑿ is a noun used to refer to the large mammal of the family Ursidae.
Meaning: large mammal of family Ursidae (noun)
How do you pronounce it?
The romanization is maskwa.
Did you know?
- In some storytelling traditions, referring to a bear by its name is considered a way of calling it into the room, leading to the use of 'the walking forest' or similar descriptive titles.
- The Cree syllabic writing system used for ᒪᐢᑿ was developed in the 19th century and is a unique method of phonetic writing that differs entirely from the Latin alphabet.
- Cree is an agglutinative language, meaning you can add various suffixes to ᒪᐢᑿ to describe the bear's size, age or behavior without needing separate adjectives.
Example conversation
Two people are walking in the woods.
- Aᑭᐣᐣ ᒪᐢᑿ ᓂᐴᐣ ᒪᐢᑿ!kinn maskwa nîw maskwa!Look, there is a bear!
- Bᐴᐣ ᒪᐢᑿ ᓂᐴᐣ ᒪᐢᑿ.wân maskwa nîw maskwa.Yes, a bear is there.
- Aᐣᐣ ᓂᐴᐣ ᒪᐢᑿ.nn nîw maskwa.It is a big bear.
- Bᓂᐣᐣ ᓂᐴᐣ ᒪᐢᑿ.ninn nîw maskwa.Let's move away from the bear.
