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Onöndowá'ga:'

Seneca

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Seneca is the Western Door of the Iroquois Confederacy, whose traditional territory is western New York State. After the American War of Independence, some of the people moved to the Grand River region of Southern Ontario, where they remain, although the majority of speakers are in New York State.

The writing system shown here is the one developed for the Seneca Bilingual Education Project in Salamanca, N.Y., as described in Northern Iroquoian Texts. This orthography is also consistant with what appears on the Ohwęjagehká: Ha’degaénage: website (based in Ohswé:ken). However, in one Seneca Language Dictionary, accented syllables are shown with an underline instead of an acute accent.

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	pal.-alveolar	velar	glottal
lenis stop		t / d		k / g	’
affricate		dz	j
voiceless fricative		s	s̈		h
nasal		n
approximate	w		y

Vowels

	front oral	front nasal	back oral	back nasal
high	i
mid	e	ë	o	ö
low	ä		a

The United States Census counts 686 Seneca speakers, and the Canadian Census groups the Senecas together with other Iroquoian languages. Howe and Cook report fewer than 25 speakers in Canada, and 100 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:

Tonawanda – Tha:nöwöde’
Allegany – Ohi:yo’
Cattaraugus – Ga’dä:gë́skë:ö’
Cornplanter* – Jonö́hsade:gëh
Six Nations – Níonöëjage:h, Swe:gë’

* Flooded by the Kinzua Dam in 1964

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/.
Vowel length is shown by a colon proceeding the vowel, so long “a” is written ‹a:›.
Stress is typically shown by an acute accent: á ä́ é ë́ í ó ö́. Other texts use the underline for stress: a̱ ä̱ e̱ ë̱ i̱ o̱ ö̱.

Last Update: December 26, 2013