Seneca language
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Seneca Onödowága |
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Spoken in: | United States, Canada | |
Region: | Western New York and the Six Nations Reserve, Ontario | |
Total speakers: | 175 | |
Language family: | Iroquoian Northern Iroquoian Proto-Lake Iroquoian Iroquois Proper Seneca-Cayuga Seneca |
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Language codes | ||
ISO 639-1: | none | |
ISO 639-2: | iro | |
ISO/FDIS 639-3: | see | |
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA chart for English for an English-based pronunciation key. |
Seneca (in Seneca, Onödowága or Onötowáka) is the language of the Seneca people, one of the Six Nations of the Iroquois League. About 10,000 Seneca live in the United States and Canada, primarily on reservations in western New York state, with others living in Oklahoma and near Brantford, Ontario.
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[edit] Phonology
There are several methods to write the Seneca Language and variations of dialect between territories and regions. The orthography described here is the one used by the Seneca Bilingual Education Project.
[edit] Consonants
Seneca has three stops, /t/, /k/, and /ʔ/. /t/ and /k/ become voiced ([d] and [ɡ]) before vowels or approximants.
Dental & Alveolar |
Postalveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Nasal | n | ||||
Stop | t | k | ʔ | ||
Affricate | ʣ | ʤ <j> | |||
Fricative | s | ʃ | h | ||
Approximant | j | w |
[edit] Vowels
Front | Back | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Oral | Nasal | Oral | Nasal | ||
Close | i | ||||
Close-mid | e | ẽ | o | õ | |
Open-mid | æ̃ | ||||
Open | a |
The nasal vowels are represented with diareses on top: <ë ö ä>). Long vowels are indicated with a following <:>.