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'Seneca' (in Seneca, 'Onödowága' or 'Onötowáka') is the language of the Seneca people, one of the Six Nations of the Iroquois League. About 10,000 Seneca live in the United States and Canada, primarily on reservations in western New York state, with others living in Oklahoma and near Brantford, Ontario.

Contents

Phonology

Consonants

Vowels

External links

Further reading

Phonology

There are several methods to write the Seneca Language and variations of dialect between territories and regions. The orthography described here is the one used by the Seneca Bilingual Education Project.

Consonants

Seneca has three stops, /t/, /k/, and . /t/ and /k/ become voiced ( and ) before vowels or approximants.

	Dental & Alveolar	Postalveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal
Stop
Affricate
Fricative
Approximant

Vowels

		'Front'		'Back'
		Oral	Nasal	Oral	Nasal
Close
Close-mid
Open-mid
Open

The nasal vowels are represented with diareses on top: <ë ö ä>). Long vowels are indicated with a following <:>.

External links

★ Language Geek: Seneca Orthography

★ Ethnologue Report on Seneca

★ Seneca Bible Society Matthew, Mark, & Luke Online

★ Seneca Language Learning Yahoo! Group

Further reading

Chafe, Wallace L. 1963. ''Handbook of the Seneca Language.'' New York State Museum and Science Service. (Bulletin No. 388). Albany, N.Y. Reprinted 2007, Toronto: Global Language Press, ISBN 978-1-8973-6713-1.