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Tuscarora

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The Tuscarora people today live in three regions of North America. The original homeland is in North Carolina, from where they moved northwards into New York state after the European colonisation of their territory. There they joined the Rotinonhsón:ni Confederacy as the sixth nation. After the American War of Independence, those who sided with the British moved to the Grand River region of Ontario, where their decendents live today. 

There are two writing systems shown here. The first is that which is used in the Tuscarora-English Dictionary compiled by Blair Rudes – labelled by it’s spelling of «Skarù·rę’». It follows the Iroquoianist tradition of nasal hooks (ogoneks) etc. This is the system current in both Tuscarora communities.

The second was developed by the Tuscarora Nation in western New York – labelled here as «Sgaroore̲h̲’» – and appears inspired by English spelling rules.

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.  

The United States Census counts 138 Tuscarora speakers, while the Canadian Census groups them  together with other Iroquoian languages. Howe and Cook report fewer than 7 speakers in Canada, and 30 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

Tuscarora – Nyučirhéʔę
Six Nations – Swekęʔá·ka·ʔ

Skarù·rę’ Consonants

  bilabial alveolar alveolar sibilant pal.-alveolar velar glottal
lenis stop
t
č
k
ʔ
voiceless fricative
θ
s
h
nasal
n
approximate
w
r
y

Skarù·rę’ Vowels

  front oral central nasal back rounded oral
high
i
u
mid
ę
low
e
a

Notes

  • High or rising tone is marked with an acute accent: ‹á›, falling tone is indicated by a grave accent ‹à›. Vowel length is written with either a colon ‹:› or a single raised dot ‹·›.
  • Nasals and resonants are voiceless at the end of words and between glottal sounds.
  • Stops are voiced before vowels.
  • ‹sy› is pronounced as a palato-alveolar fricative, English “sh”.

Sgaroore̲h̲’ Consonants

  bilabial alveolar alveolar sibilant pal.-alveolar velar glottal
lenis stop
t / d
ch / g or j
k / g or gh
’
voiceless fricative
th
s
sh
h
nasal
n
approximate
w / f
r / s
y

Sgaroore̲h̲’ Vowels

  front oral central nasal back rounded oral
high
ee
oo
mid
e̲h̲
low
eh
a

Notes

  • Although voicing of sounds is not phonemic (not grammatically distinctive), stops and approximates have two symbols: one for voiceless occurances, and the other for voiced. In the table above, the character to the left of the slash is the voiceless version. Stop plus /h/ would be written with the voiceless symbol, and the /h/ omitted.
  • The letter ‹g› “softens” as in English, so that before the vowel ‹ee›, hard “g” (phonemic /k/) is written ‹gh›. If ‹g› does appear before ‹ee›, it is pronounced as “j” (phonemic /č/).
  • The /h/ sound is not written after ‹eh› and ‹e̲h̲› when the next letter is a consonant.
  • Vowel length and tone are not indicated in the orthography.

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Last Update: August 21, 2008