Seneca language

Language revitalization

In 1998, the Seneca Faithkeepers School was founded as a five-day-a week school to teach children the Seneca language and tradition. In 2010, K-5 Seneca language teacher Anne Tahamont received recognition for her work with students at Silver Creek School and in language documentation, presenting "Documenting the Seneca Language' using a Recursive Bilingual Education Framework" at the International Conference on Language Documentation and Conservation (ICLDC).

As of summer 2012,

The fewer than 50 native speakers of the Seneca Nation of Indians' language would agree that it is in danger of becoming extinct. Fortunately, a $200,000 federal grant for the Seneca Language Revitalization Program has further solidified a partnership with Rochester Institute of Technology that will help develop a user-friendly computer catalogue allowing future generations to study and speak the language.

The revitalization program grant, awarded to RIT's Native American Future Stewards Program, is designed to enhance usability of the Seneca language.

The project will develop "a user-friendly, web-based dictionary or guide to the Seneca language." "Robbie Jimerson, a graduate student in RIT's computer science program and resident of the Cattaraugus Indian Reservation near Buffalo," who is working on the project, commented: "My grandfather has always said that a joke is funnier in Seneca than it is in English." As of January 2013, a Seneca language app was under development.

As of Fall 2012, Seneca language learners are partnering with fluent mentors, and a newsletter, Gae:wanöhge′! Seneca Language Newsletter, is available online.

Although Seneca-owned radio station WGWE (whose call sign derives from "gwe," a Seneca word roughly translating to "what's up?") broadcasts primarily in English, it features a daily "Seneca Word of the Day" feature before each noon newscast, broadcasts a limited amount of Seneca-language music, and makes occasional use of the Seneca language in its broadcasts in a general effort to increase awareness of the Seneca language by the general public.

In 2013, the first public sports event was held in the Seneca language, when middle school students served as announcers for a lacrosse match.

Bilingual road signs, such as stop signs and speed limit signs, appear in the Seneca capital of Jimersontown; these signs were erected in 2016. Prior to this, as part of the upgrade to Interstate 86, the names of townships within the Allegany Indian Reservation were marked in Seneca along the highway in Comic Sans.

Phonology

Seneca words are written with 13 letters, three of which can be umlauted, plus the colon (:) and the acute accent mark. Seneca language is generally written in all-lowercase, and capital letters are only used rarely, even then only for the first letter of a word; all-caps is never used, even on road signs. The vowels and consonants are a, ä, e, ë, i, o, ö, h, j, k, n, s, t, w, y, and ˀ, the last of which is always in superscript form. In some transliterations, t is substituted with d, and likewise k with g; Seneca does not have a strong differentiation between voiced and voiceless consonants.

Consonants

Seneca consonants include the Resonants /y/, /w/, and /n/, and the Obstruents /t/, /k/, /s/, /j/, /h/, and /ˀ/.

Resonants

/j/ is a palatal semivowel. After [s] it is voiceless and spirantized [ç]. After [h] it is voiceless [j̊], in free variation with a spirant allophone [ç]. After [t] or [k] it is voiced and optionally spirantized [j], in free variation with a spirant allophone [ʝ]. Otherwise it is voiced and not spirantized [y].

/w/ is a velar semivowel. It is weakly rounded [w].

/n/ is a released apico-alveolar nasal [n̺].

Obstruents

The obstruents can be further subclassified into the oral obstruents /t/, /k/, /s/, and /dʒ/, and the laryngeal obstruents /h/ and /ʔ/.

Oral obstruents

/t/ is an apico-alveolar stop [t̺]. It is voiceless and aspirated [t̺ʰ] before an obstruent or an open juncture (but is hardly audible between a nasalized vowel and open juncture). It is voiced and released [d̺] before a vowel and resonant.

/k/ is a dorso-velar stop [k]. It is voiceless and aspirated [kʰ] before an obstruent or open juncture. It is voiced and released [g] before a vowel or resonant.

/s/ is a spirant with blade-alveolar groove articulation [s]. It is always voiceless, and is fortis [s˰] everywhere except between vowels. Before [j] it is palatalized [ʃ]. It is lenis [s˯] intervocalically.

/dʒ/ is a voiced alveolar affricate [dz]. Before [i] it is optionally palatalized [dz] in free variation with [dź].

Laryngeal obstruents

/h/ is a voiceless segment [h] colored by an immediately preceding and/or following vowel and/or resonant.

/ʔ/ is a glottal stop [ʔ].

Vowels

The vowels can be subclassified into the Oral Vowels /i/, /e/, /æ/, /a/, and /o/, and the Nasalized Vowels /ɛ/ and /ɔ/.

The orthography described here is the one used by the Seneca Bilingual Education Project. The nasal vowels, /ɛ̃/ and /ɔ̃/, are transcribed with tremas on top: ⟨ë ö⟩. Depending on the phonetic environment, the nasal vowel ⟨ë⟩ may vary between [ɛ̃] and [œ̃], whereas ⟨ö⟩ may vary from [ɔ̃] to [ɑ̃]. Long vowels are indicated with a following ⟨:⟩, while stress is indicated with an acute accent over the top.

Oral vowels

/i/ is a high front vowel [i].

/e/ is a high-mid front vowel. Its high allophone [ɪ] occurs in postconsonantal position before [i] or an oral obstruent. Its low allophone [e] occurs in all other environments.

/æ/ is a low front vowel [æ].

/a/ is a low central vowel. Its high allophone [ʌ] occurs in postconsonantal position before [i], [w], [j], or an oral obstruent. Its low allophone [ɑ] occurs in all other environments. Before [ɛ] or [ɔ] it is nasalized [ã].

/o/ is a mid back vowel. It is weakly rounded. Its high allophone [ʊ] occurs in postconsonantal position before [i] or an oral obstruent. Its low allophone [o] occurs in all other environments.

Nasal vowels

/ɛ/ is a low-mid front vowel. It is nasalized [ɛ̃].

/ɔ/ is a low back vowel. It is weakly rounded and nasalized [ɔ̃].

Diphthongs

The following diphthongs are oral: ae, ai, ao, ea, ei, eo, oa, oe, and oi.

The nasal diphthongs are aë, aö, eö, and oë.

Prosodic phonemes

Stress is either strong, marked with an acute accent mark, or weak, which is unmarked.

Vowel length is marked with a colon ⟨:⟩.

Open Juncture is marked by word space.