Onondaga language

Onondaga
Onǫda’géga’, Onoñda’gega’
Native to	Canada, United States
Region	Six Nations Reserve, Ontario, and central New York
Native speakers	65 to 115
Language family	Iroquoian Northern Iroquoian Proto-Lake Iroquoian Iroquois Proper Onondaga
Language codes
ISO 639-2	iro
ISO 639-3	ono
ELP	Onondaga

Onondaga Nation Language (Onöñda’gega’ (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 the reservation in central New York state, and near Brantford, Ontario.

Phonology

This table show the (consonant) phonemes that are found in Onondaga.

Consonant phonemes

	Alveolar	Postalveolar / Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal	n
Plosives	t		k	ʔ
Affricate		dʒ
Fricatives	s			h
Approximants		j	w

The two stops, /t/, /k/ are allophonically voiced to [d] and [ɡ] before vowels and approximants and are spelled <d> and <g> in this case. There is considerable palatalization and affrication in the language.

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, <:> or raised dot <·>.

Morphology

Languages are often classified in terms of the complexity of their morphology, that aspect of language that expresses itself in terms of the shapes of words and the meaningful elements morphemes of which words are composed. Polysynthetic languages are ones whose words are routinely composed of numerous morphemes. In contrast, languages whose words are usually monomorphemic, composed of a single morpheme, are called isolating languages. Often languages are mixed, in that some of their word classes are more polysynthetic than others. This is how it is with Onondaga, whose words differ in this regard depending on particular word classes of which there are three: Onondaga's verbal structures are highly polysynthetic; nouns are less so; particles are by definition monomorphemic. An example of a verb consisting of a fair number of morphemes is:

waʔdyųdetgwęʔdaʔné·ga·ʔ

waʔ-d-yų-adet-gwęʔd-ʔnega·-aʔ

factual.mode-change.of.state-she-self-belly-burst-at.one.point.in.time

"she blabbed, she revealed a secret" [literally, 'she burst her belly']

The constituent morphemes are separated by hyphens in the second line of the example. An attempt has been made in the third line to gloss, as closely as possible, the meanings the separate morphemes contribute. It is important to understand, that none of the component morphemes can be uttered, or understood, in isolation.

A second way in which linguists classify the morphology of languages is in terms of how the morphemes of a word combine. This distinction is between languages that are fusional and languages that are agglutinative. Fusion occurs in two ways: a single morpheme may have two or more functions (or meanings) in a given word, or contiguous morphemes may affect each other's shape in such a way that it is difficult to segment the word into morphemes. A language is agglutinative if the morphemes composing a word each carries its own meaning and can be easily segmented from its neighbor. Onondaga is fusional (in the second sense of that term). Fusion is especially prevalent at the boundary between prefixes and the stem. Here certain phonological processes take place which change the shapes of one or both contiguous morphemes. For example:

gędé·ih

ga-idę·-ih

neuter.agent.prefix-help.out-stative.aspect

"it is helping."

Languages are also classified in terms of the preeminent morphological processes they manifest. In Onondaga the two major morphological processes are prefixing, and suffixing. Prefixes and suffixes are bound morphemes, that is, they are morphemes that cannot occur in isolation. Onondaga verbs must, minimally, begin in a pronominal prefix and inflect for aspect. For example:

hayę́thwas

ha-yę́thw-as

third.person.singular.masculine.agent-plant-habitual.aspect

"he plants"

Nouns must, minimally, begin in a nominal prefix and end in a noun suffix. For example:

ganáʔjyaʔ

ga-naʔjy-aʔ

neuter.agent-pail-noun.suffix

"pail"

The major functions of prefixes in Onondaga are to specify modality, i.e., the speaker's attitude toward the specified situation (modal prepronominal prefixes); to add adverbial meanings to verb forms (non-modal prepronominal prefixes); to specify pronominal reference (agent, patient, or transitive i.e., agent-patient, pronominal prefixes); to derive middle voice (semireflexive affix); and to indicate reflexive or reciprocal action (reflexive affix). The major functions of suffixes in verbs are to specify aspect, i.e., the way the situation specified by the verb moves through time (aspect and extended aspect suffixes) and to affect a verb's valence, i.e., the participant structure of the situation described by the verb (derivational suffixes). In nouns prefixes mark class membership and possession; suffixes mark class membership.

Other, less frequent, morphological processes in Onondaga are cliticization and suppletion.

Syntax

While syntax traditionally refers to the study of the arrangement of words in a sentence, its use, especially in the study of polysynthetic languages, is often used to describe word structure. This is partly due to the lack of consensus on the definition of "word". Thus, some of the topics included here might be included under the topic of morphology by other specialists in the field.

Noun Incorporation

Noun Incorporation in Onondaga is a process by which a nominal element appears as a part of the verbal complex, resulting in a single word. Patient arguments can undergo incorporation into transitive or intransitive verbs. The first example shows that the nominal root /-nakd-/ ('bed') has been incorporated into the verbal complex forming a single word. The second example shows the noun /ganakdaʔ/ ('bed') separated from the verb and preceded by the particle neʔ. This particle marks a following word or phrase as a nominal.

waʔgenakdahní:nǫʔ

waʔ-k-e-nakd-a-hninǫ-ʔ

FACT-1.SG.NOM-EPEN-bed-EPEN-buy-PUNC

"I bought the/a bed."

waʔkhní:nǫʔ neʔ ganákdaʔ

waʔ-k-hninǫ-ʔ neʔ ga-nakd-aʔ

FACT-1.SG.NOM-buy-PUNC NE AGR-bed-NFS

"I bought the/a bed."

The pair of examples illustrates that noun incorporation is often optional in Onondaga. The use of noun incorporation is governed by various discourse factors, as a way of backgrounding information, or to describe institutionalized activities (like English 'baby-sitting').

Word Order

Word order is typically free in Onondaga, with all six word orders, SVO, SOV, VSO, VOS, OVS, OSV found in naturally occurring speech. The discourse factors that affect word order are still poorly understood.

Question Formation

Questions are formed by moving the question word or question phrase to the beginning of the sentence.

See also

• Onondaga (tribe)

References

Chafe, Wallace L. 1970. A Semantically Based Sketch of Onondaga. Indiana University Publications in Anthropology and Linguistics. Memoir 25 of the International Journal of American Linguistics.

Woodbury, Hanni. 2002. Onondaga-English/English-Onondaga Dictionary. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

External links

• Ethnologue Report on Onondaga
• Language Geek: Onondaga