Young boys and girls at the Mohawk Institute Indian Residential School in Brantford, Ontario were punished for using their heritage language.
[2] In Canada, Gawęnahwishe' Onǫda'gega' is a revitalization project that launched in 2017 with six new language learners.
It is an adult immersion program that implements the Six Nations Language Commission's (SNLC) framework.
The two plosives, /t/, /k/ are allophonically voiced to [d] and [ɡ] before vowels and resonants (the bottom row of the chart labelled 'sonorant') and are spelled ⟨d⟩ and ⟨g⟩ in this case.
The nasal vowels, following the Iroquoianist tradition, are spelled with ogoneks in the scholarly literature and in Ontario (⟨ę⟩ and ⟨ǫ⟩ or ⟨ų⟩).
Onondaga is a polysynthetic language, exhibiting a great deal of inflectional and derivational morphology on the verbal forms (including noun incorporation).
Onondaga verbs can be divided into three main classes according to their aspectual properties (discussed below).
This aspect is used to refer to an event that takes place repeatedly or on an ongoing basis.
The third aspect is the stative (STAT) (also known as imperfective) refers to an event that is ongoing or incomplete or, if it occurs in the past tense, that has some bearing on the present.
Finally, there is the purposive aspect (PURP), which refers to imminent action and usually implies intent or volition on the part of the subject.
The list of these includes repetitive, cislocative, dualic, translocative, partitive, coincident, contrastive, and negative.
de-DUC-yǫ-3.SG.F-ashęthw-ascry-HABde- yǫ- ashęthw-asDUC- 3.SG.F- cry-HAB'She is crying'de-DUC-ha-3.SG.M-ahah-road-iyaʔk-cross-sHABde- ha- ahah- iyaʔk- sDUC- 3.SG.M- road- cross- HAB'He crosses a road.
In older texts, the neuter is used to refer to human females in certain circumstances, although this usage is no longer common.
Verbs which involve involuntary action or states are conjugated with the patient series.
There are so many exceptions to this generalization, however, that one has to simply learn for each intransitive verb whether it takes the agent or the patient series.
The basic form of the reflexive marker (REFL) is /atat-/ and it appears right after the pronominal prefix and before the incorporated noun, if any.
The reflexive is typically found only on transitive verbs, but because there is only one participant in the event, we use the intransitive series of pronominal prefixes.
waʔ-FACT-k-1.SG.AG-atat-REFL-aehsęthw-kick-aʔPUNCwaʔ- k- atat- aehsęthw- aʔFACT- 1.SG.AG- REFL- kick- PUNC'I kicked myself.
waʔ-FACT-t-DUC-hy-3.DU.AG-atat-REFL-yǫtya-laugh-ht-CAUS-ęʔPUNCwaʔ- t- hy- atat- yǫtya- ht- ęʔFACT- DUC- 3.DU.AG- REFL- laugh- CAUS- PUNC'They two made each other laugh.
waʔ-FACT-k-1.SG.AG-at-SRFL-nęntsh-arm-a-JOIN-getsgw-raise-aʔPUNCwaʔ- k- at- nęntsh- a- getsgw- aʔFACT- 1.SG.AG- SRFL- arm- JOIN- raise- PUNC'I raised my arm.'
Unknown glossing abbreviation(s) (help);waʔ-FACT-khe-1.SG.AG:3.SG.F.PAT-nęntsh-arm-a-JOIN-getsgw-raise-aʔPUNCwaʔ- khe- nęntsh- a- getsgw- aʔFACT- 1.SG.AG:3.SG.F.PAT- arm- JOIN- raise- PUNC'I raised her arm.'
JohnJohnwaʔ-FACT-ha-3.SG.M.AG-at-SRFL-yaʔt-body-ohae-wash-ʔPUNCJohn waʔ- ha- at- yaʔt- ohae- ʔJohn FACT- 3.SG.M.AG- SRFL- body- wash- PUNC'John washed (himself).
waʔ-FACT-w-3.SG.N.PAT-at-SRFL-ehnhohw-door-aR-apply-kPUNCwaʔ- w- at- ehnhohw- aR- kFACT- 3.SG.N.PAT- SRFL- door- apply- PUNC'The door closed.
'o-3.SG.N.PAT-at-SRFL-ųhwęjy-earth-yaʔk-break-ihSTATo- at- ųhwęjy- yaʔk- ih3.SG.N.PAT- SRFL- earth- break- STAT'The earth has caved in.
'waʔ-d-yų-adet-gwęʔd-ʔnegaꞏ-aʔFACT-change.of.state-she-self-belly-burst-at.one.point.in.timewaʔ-d-yų-adet-gwęʔd-ʔnegaꞏ-aʔFACT-change.of.state-she-self-belly-burst-at.one.point.in.time"she blabbed, she revealed a secret" [literally, 'she burst her belly']The constituent morphemes are separated by hyphens in the second line of the example.
It is important to understand that none of the component morphemes is a separate word, since they cannot be uttered, or understood, in isolation.
A second way in which linguists classify the morphology of languages is in terms of how the morphemes of a word combine.
A language is agglutinative if the morphemes composing a word each carries its own meaning and can be easily segmented from its neighbor.
The first example shows that the nominal root -nęh- "corn" has been incorporated into the verbal complex forming a single word.
[citation needed] Word order is typically free in Onondaga (though see question formation below).