Wendat Language
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Wyandot (also Wyandotte, Wendat, Quendat or Huron) is the
Iroquoian The Iroquoian languages () are a language family of indigenous peoples of North America. They are known for their general lack of labial consonants. The Iroquoian languages are polysynthetic and head-marking. As of 2020, almost all surviving I ...
language traditionally spoken by the people known as Wyandot or Wyandotte, descended from the Tionontati. It is considered a sister to the Wendat language, spoken by descendants of the Huron-Wendat Confederacy. It was last spoken, before its revival, by members located primarily in
Oklahoma Oklahoma ( ; Choctaw language, Choctaw: , ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Texas to the south and west, Kansas to the north, Missouri to the northea ...
, United States, and
Quebec Quebec is Canada's List of Canadian provinces and territories by area, largest province by area. Located in Central Canada, the province shares borders with the provinces of Ontario to the west, Newfoundland and Labrador to the northeast, ...
, Canada. Linguists have traditionally considered Wyandot as a dialect or modern form of Wendat, even though the two are no longer mutually intelligible. Wyandot essentially died out as a spoken language with the death of the last native speaker in 1972, though there are now attempts at revitalization: *The
Wyandotte Nation The Wyandotte Nation is a Federally recognized tribes, federally recognized Native American tribe headquartered in northeastern Oklahoma. They are descendants of the Wyandot people, Wendat Confederacy and Native Americans with territory near ...
is offering Wyandot language classes in the Wyandotte Public Schools grades K–4, at the Wyandotte Nation's preschool "Turtle-Tots" program in Oklahoma and has created online language lessons for self-study. *The
Huron-Wendat Nation The Huron-Wendat Nation (or Huron-Wendat First Nation) is an Iroquoian-speaking nation that was established in the 17th century. In the French language, used by most members of the First Nation, they are known as the . The French gave the nickn ...
of Quebec is offering adult and children's classes in the Wendat language at its village school in Wendake.


History


Relationship to Wendat

Although linguistics have equated with or seen as a dialect of the Iroquoian Wendat (Huron), Wyandot became so differentiated as to be considered a distinct language. This change appears to have happened sometime between the mid-18th century, when the Jesuit missionary Pierre Potier (1708–1781) documented the Petun dialect of Wendat in Canada, and the mid-nineteenth century. By the time the ethnographer
Marius Barbeau Charles Marius Barbeau, (March 5, 1883 – February 27, 1969), also known as C. Marius Barbeau, or more commonly simply Marius Barbeau, was a Canadians, Canadian ethnographer and folklorist who is today considered a founder of Canadian anthr ...
made his transcriptions of the Wyandot language in Wyandotte, Oklahoma, in 1911–1912, it had diverged enough to be considered a separate language. Significant differences between Wendat and Wyandot in diachronic phonology, pronominal prefixes, and lexicon challenge the traditional view that Wyandot is modern Wendat. History suggests the roots of this language are complex; the ancestors of the Wyandot were refugees from various Huronian tribes who banded together to form one tribe. After being displaced from their ancestral home in Canada on Georgian Bay, the group traveled south, first to Ohio and later to Kansas and Oklahoma. As many members of this group were Petun, some scholars have suggested that Wyandot is more influenced by Petun than by its descent from Wendat. The work of Barbeau was used by linguist
Craig Kopris Craig may refer to: People and fictional characters *Craig (surname), including a list of people and fictional characters * Craig (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters * Clan Craig, a Scottish clan Places United State ...
to reconstruct Wyandot; he developed a grammar and dictionary of the language. This work represents the most comprehensive research done on the Wyandot language as spoken in Oklahoma just prior to its extinction (or its
dormancy Dormancy is a period in an organism's Biological life cycle, life cycle when growth, development, and (in animals) physical activity are temporarily stopped. This minimizes metabolism, metabolic activity and therefore helps an organism to conserv ...
as modern tribal members refer to it).


Phonology


Consonants

The phonemic inventory of the consonants is written by using the orthography used by Kopris in his analysis, which was based on Barbeau's transcriptions. The orthographic symbol is written in angled brackets where it differs from the IPA. Kopris listed places of articulation for the consonants but noted that the distinction had not been made by Barbeau. is placed in parentheses because it appears as an
allophone In phonology, an allophone (; from the Greek , , 'other' and , , 'voice, sound') is one of multiple possible spoken soundsor '' phones''used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, the voiceless plos ...
of in nearly all cases, but that cannot always explain its presence. The presence of a single voiced stop, , contrasting with the voiceless stop , makes Wyandot unusual among Iroquoian languages, as it is the only one with a phonemic voicing distinction. The sound is pronounced as rather than , according to researchers who phonetically transcribed directly from fluent speakers and described it as "corresponding to the English ''r''" and as "the smooth English sound, never vibrant." The Wyandot and are both cognate with in other Northern Iroquoian languages. Although the two largely appear to be in
free variation In linguistics, free variation is the phenomenon of two (or more) sounds or forms appearing in the same environment without a change in meaning and without being considered incorrect by native speakers. Sociolinguists argue that describing such ...
, they clearly contrast in some cases (as in the minimal pairs and ). The ambiguity of the relationship between and seems to indicate that the two are in the process of a phonemic split that was not yet complete by the early 20th century. Another unique feature of Wyandot is the presence of the voiced
fricative A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in ...
, creating an - contrast, but there is no corresponding - contrast. The
phoneme A phoneme () is any set of similar Phone (phonetics), speech sounds that are perceptually regarded by the speakers of a language as a single basic sound—a smallest possible Phonetics, phonetic unit—that helps distinguish one word fr ...
also has no voiced counterpart. Consonants may appear in clusters. Word-initial consonant clusters can be up to three consonants long, medial clusters up to four consonants long, and final clusters up to two consonants long.


Vowels

Barbeau's original transcriptions contained great detail and a complex system of diacritics, resulting in 64 different vowel characters. By eliminating allophones, Kopris found six phonemes, in addition to the marginal phoneme . Other analysis of the same Barbeau data suggests that vowel length is contrastive in Wyandot, like in other Iroquoian languages.


Phonototactics

A Wyandot syllable consists of a vowel as the nucleus, a coda, and an optional onset. Onset clusters of two consonants are possible, with a single triconsonantal cluster () occurring only in the first syllable of a word. Codas may consist of up to two consonants. This gives a maximal Wyandot syllable structure of CCCVCC, where C represent a consonant, and V represents a vowel.


Orthography

Wyandot is written in the
Latin script The Latin script, also known as the Roman script, is a writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae in Magna Graecia. The Gree ...
, with the additional character representing a glottal stop. The majority of characters represent their IPA values, with a few exceptions. The fricatives /ʃ/ and /ʒ/ are indicated with a hachek, as and , and nasal vowels are indicated by a nasal hook (e.g., , ). A colon indicates a long vowel (e.g., ). As in the IPA, a raised indicates prenasalization of stops (e.g., , ). Some allophones of consonants are explicitly indicated (e.g. , ). Wendat use a similar orthography, with some differences. Although based on the 17th-century orthography of the
Jesuit The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...
missionaries A missionary is a member of a religious group who is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Thomas Hale 'On Being a Miss ...
, the current orthography no longer uses the Greek letters θ for , χ for , ͺ for , or ȣ (or 8) for and . Pre-nasalization of stops is indicated by (e.g., ). Nasal vowels are indicated as in French by (e.g., , ). To disambiguate nasal vowels from oral vowels followed by /n/, the latter have diaeresis over the vowel (e.g., , ). Glottal stops are written with an apostrophe. The fricative /ʃ/ is written as . Consonantal allophones are not explicitly indicated.


Sample vocabulary

*''Seten'' - Stop, used on road signs (with ''arrêt'') in some Huron reserves, such as Wendake in Quebec. *''Skat'' - One *''Tindee'' - Two *''Shenk'' - Three *''Anduak'' - Four *''Weeish'' - Five *''Sandustee'' - Water *''Kanata'' - Village *"änen'enh" -NEN'-enh- Mother


Wyandot and Wendat today

Citizens of the
Wyandotte Nation The Wyandotte Nation is a Federally recognized tribes, federally recognized Native American tribe headquartered in northeastern Oklahoma. They are descendants of the Wyandot people, Wendat Confederacy and Native Americans with territory near ...
, whose headquarters is in Wyandotte, Oklahoma, are promoting the study of Wyandot as a second language among its people as part of a cultural revival."Language page of the Wyandotte Nation"
/ref> Since 2005, Richard Zane Smith of the Wyandot Nation of Kansas (an unrecognized non-profit organization that identifies as a Native American tribe) has been volunteering and teaching in the Wyandotte schools with the aid of the linguist Kopris. Linguistic work is also being done on the closely related Wendat. The
anthropologist An anthropologist is a scientist engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropologists study aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms, values ...
John Steckley was reported in 2007 as being "the sole speaker" (non-native) of Wendat. Several Wendat scholars have master's degrees in Wendat language and have been active as linguists in the Wendat community in Quebec. In Wendake, Quebec, the First Nations people are working on a revival of Wendat language and culture. The language is being introduced in adult classes and into the village primary school. The Wendat linguist Megan Lukaniec has been instrumental in helping to create curriculum, infrastructure, and materials for Wendat language programs. The Wyandot language is used in the television series '' Barkskins''.


See also

* Gabriel Sagard, ''Le grand voyage'' and ''Dictionnaire de la langue huronne'' (''Dictionary of the Huron Language''), 17th century * John Steckley, ed. (2009). ''Dictionary of the Huron Language''


Notes


References

* * * * * *


Sources


Native-languages.org: Wyandot wordsLanguage page of the Wyandotte Nation
*


External links

*For an example of Wyandot(te) language revitalization work, see an online lesson
"Wyandotte"
Southern Oklahoma University
Wendat language dictionary compilation
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wyandot Language
Language Language is a structured system of communication that consists of grammar and vocabulary. It is the primary means by which humans convey meaning, both in spoken and signed language, signed forms, and may also be conveyed through writing syste ...
Northern Iroquoian languages Indigenous languages of the North American eastern woodlands First Nations languages in Canada Indigenous languages of Oklahoma Extinct languages of North America Native American language revitalization