Cayuga (In Cayuga Goyogohó:nǫ’) is a Northern Iroquoian language of the Iroquois Proper (also known as "Five Nations Iroquois") subfamily, and is spoken in Six Nations, Ontario by around 100 people.

Dialects

There were at one time two distinct dialects of Cayuga. One is still spoken in Ontario, the other, called "Seneca-Cayuga," was spoken in Oklahoma until the 1980s.

Sounds

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Vowels

Cayuga has 12 vowels, six short and six long. appears as an allophone of .

Vowels can be devoiced allophonically, indicated in the orthography used at Six Nations by underlining them.

	Front		Central	Back
	Oral	Nasal		Oral	Nasal
Close
Mid
Open

Consonants

Cayuga has only ten consonants, with no labials. In the Six Nations orthography, the stops and affricate, which are allophonically voiced before vowels or approximants, are represented with voiced symbols (, , ). occurs as an allophone of between and , and this is also indicated in the orthography.

	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Labiovelar	Glottal
Plosive
Affricate
Fricative
Nasal
Approximant

References

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• Mithun, Marianne. The Languages of Native North America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

External links

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• Cayuga at LanguageGeek
• Ohwęjagehká: Ha’degaénage: Cayuga
• Sgę́nǫ’ Gahnawiyo’geh! - How to say "hello" in Cayuga

Languages of Canada | Iroquoian languages | Indigenous languages of the North American eastern woodlands