Onondaga language
| Onondaga Onǫda’géga’, Onoñda’géga’ |
||
|---|---|---|
| Spoken in: | Canada, United States | |
| Region: | Six Nations Reserve, Ontario, and western New York | |
| Total speakers: | between 65 and 115 | |
| Language family: | Iroquoian Northern Iroquoian Proto-Lake Iroquoian Iroquois Proper Onondaga |
|
| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639-1: | none | |
| ISO 639-2: | iro | |
| ISO 639-3: | ono | |
| Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. | ||
Onondaga (Onǫda’géga’ or Onoñda’géga’ (IPA /onũtaʔkekaʔ/), "People of the Hills") is the language of the Onondaga First Nation, one of the original five constituent tribes of the League of the Iroquois (Hodenosaunee).
This language is spoken in the United States and Canada, primarily on reservations in western New York state, and near Brantford, Ontario.
Phonology
There are three stops, /t/, /k/, and the glottal stop /ʔ/ (before vowels and approximants, /t/ and /k/ are allophonically voiced to [d] and [g], and are spelled <d> and <g> in these situations); three fricatives, /s ʃ h/; nasal /n/; and approximants /w/ and /j/ (spelled <y>). There is also an affricate, spelled <j>.
Onondaga has five oral vowels, /i e o æ a/ (/æ/ is normally represented with <ä>), and two nasal vowels, /ẽ/ and /ũ/. The nasal vowels, following the Iroquoianist tradition, are spelled with ogoneks in Ontario (<ę> and <ǫ>). In New York, they are represented with a following <ñ> (<eñ> and <oñ>). Vowels can be both short and long, in which case they are written with a following colon, <:>.
Grammar
Like all Iroquoian languages, Onondaga is a polysynthetic language, meaning that many grammatical and lexical concepts are expressed as modifiers rather than separate words. This means that many concepts which could take many words to express in English can be express in a single word in Onondaga. For example:
- waʔtkhenakdagwádęh
- waʔ-t-k-he-nakd-a-gwa-d-ęh
- FACT-DUALIC-1.SG.NOM-3.NONMASC.ACC-bed-EPEN-raise-BEN-PUNC
- "I raised the bed for her/them." (ex, a Murphy bed)
The abbreviations used above are as follows:
-
- FACT = Factive, something known to have occurred
- DUALIC = (A range of different meanings)
- 1.SG.NOM = I - refers to the subject
- 3.NOMMASC.ACC = Her/them - refers to the object, 3rd person, non-masculine
- EPEN = An epenthetic vowel, inserted to break up illegal consonant clusters
- BEN = Benefactive, indicates that event was done for someone's benefit
- PUNC = Punctual, refers to an event that is over and done with
See also
External links
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
