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Goyogo̱hó:nǫ’

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Text Example

The original territory of the Cayuga people is western New York state, around the lake that bears their English name. Today, virtually all of the Cayuga speakers live along the Grand River in southern Ontario, where they moved after the American War of Independence. There is a strong movement to promote and teach the language in Ohswé:ken.

The orthography presented here is based on the Iroquoianist tradition, and is currently in use at Six Nations. It is the writing system employed in the textbook Watęwayéstanih, and on the Ohwęjagehká: Ha’degaénage: website (based in Ohswé:ken).

Note: There are several Roman Orthography conventions on this site that may require further explanation. On the charts below, there is lots of phonetic terminology that may not be familiar to everyone.  

Consonants

  bilabial alveolar palatal velar glottal
lenis stop
t / d
k / g
’
affricate
ts / dz
voiceless fricative
(f)
s
h
nasal
n
approximate
w
r
y

Vowels

  front oral front nasal back oral back nasal
high
i
mid
e
ę
o
ǫ
low
a

The United States Census counts 40 Cayuga speakers, and the Canadian Census groups the Cayugas together with other Iroquoian speakers. Howe and Cook report 100 speakers in Canada, and 10 in the U.S. Compare these figures to those on the main Iroquoian page on this site, which were collected from within the communities themselves.

 

Community Names:

Forthcoming

Notes

  • Phonologically (in the grammar of the language), ‹t› and ‹d› are the same sound: /t/. The phoneme /t/ is written ‹d› when pronounced as voiced – i.e. before a vowel or approximate – and ‹t› elsewhere. The same situation exists for ‹g› (voiced) and ‹k› (elsewhere), which are used for /k/, and ‹ts› and ‹dz› for /ts/. The series stop + /h/ is written either with the voiceless symbol + ‹h›, or simply the voiceless symbol.
  • Vowel length is shown by a colon proceeding the vowel, so long “a” is written ‹a:›.
  • Stress is shown by an acute accent: á é ę́ í ó ǫ́.
  • If a vowel is voiceless, it is underlined: a̱ e̱ ę̱ i̱ o̱ ǫ̱.
  • The letter ‹f› written when /s/ appears between an /h/ and an /r/.

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Last Update: August 21, 2008