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Oneida Language

 * There are differing viewpoints on how many speakers there are - 250 or 190?
 * Some links are in red, indicating that they do not exist
 * Some cited as "citations needed"
 * Mentions 1994 - may be outdated
 * There are many claims made that have no citations at all
 * There are many books and articles cited, which may indicate more reliable sources
 * One citation not in proper citation form - indicates lack of knowledge on how to cite
 * The article is very clearly organized
 * Most citations come from the same sources

Assessment of the "health" of the Oneida language [edit]
[Oneida speakers were originally settled in New York State. They have seen been factionalized, and are now found in three different communities in New York State, Wisconsin, and Ontario, Canada. The division began with the influence of a number of missionaries in the late 18th century to the early 19th century who convinced many Oneida to either accept Christianity or maintain their more traditional Oneida beliefs. Eleazer Williams, a Mowhawk Indian, further convinced many Oneida to convert to Christianity and leave New York State to settle in an area near Green Bay, Wisconsin. The communities were further divided by the American Revolution, in which the Oneida took the side of the United States and the rest of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy (also sometimes referred to as the Iroquois Confederacy) took the side of the Enlgish. Further division was created within the Wisconsin Oneida community, in which Oneida speaking children were taken away from their families and brought to boarding schools where they were only allowed to speak English. All of these factors have led to the decrease in speakers.]

[Some language revitalization and preservation efforts have been made. Beginning in 1936 and led by Morris Swadesh, the Folklore Project, started at the University of Wisconsin, was an important program for the preservation and expansion of the Oneida language. It was later led by Floyd Lounsbury and formally started in January, 1939. It lasted for nineteen months. Twenty-four Oneidas were placed in a two-week training session, in which they were told to write their language. Those considered the best writers would then complete the project. These writers were to meet every weekday and were to get paid 50 cents an hour as compensation for their time spent doing the study. By the end of the project, the participants, which was reduced to eight throughout the project, were able to write in their language. They collected stories, which were then also brought to the University staff, and were then transcribed.]

While numbers of native speakers are limited, the viability of the Oneida nations and their efforts of cultural and linguistic preservation are at their highest level in 150 years. All three Oneida nations, New York, Wisconsin, and Thames (Ontario), have relatively well-developed websites publicizing the current events of the tribes and their governmental actions (www.oneidaindiannation.com; www.oneidanation.org; www.oneida.on.ca/index.htm). The presence of these sites is known to the public: the Central New York Business Journal reported that the site of the Oneida Nation of New York is the oldest nationally (Gregory 2008 Sep 19). These sites use a limited amount of Oneida language, almost exclusively in a context of explicit cultural preservation.

Efforts to increase the number of bilingual Oneida speakers, however, have been extensive. Oneida language study has been formally sanctioned by the New York Oneida Nation for the past fifteen years and, through a collaboration with Berlitz to promote intensive language study, has been progressing rapidly since 2004. The Berlitz representative acting as liaison to the Oneida Nation identified the task as a particularly difficult one:

The new revenues from casinos are helping the Oneida undertake language preservation. Extant literary works are recent: Elm & Antone's Creation Story was published in 2000, and Wonderley's collection of stories in 2004. Although the time of the Oneida language as a primary language is almost certainly ending if it has not already ended, signs point to its continued use in a cultural context.

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Morphology [edit]
Oneida is polysynthetic and has substantial noun incorporation. Affixes are both prefixing and suffixing depending on precise usage. Verbs take three aspects, habitual, punctual, and stative, which are marked via suffixing. Modal prefixes (future, factual, and optative) fill the role of verb tense; non-modal prefixes are often adpositional. Oneida is head-marking, and designates person and number in this way. These so-called "patient prefixes" take singular, dual, or plural forms to mark the inclusive-exclusive distinction. [There is also evidence of "multiple feminine genders" in Oneida. These are referred to as "feminine-zoic and "feminine-indefinite". ]

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Phonology [edit]
There are four oral vowels, /i e o a/, and two nasal vowels, /ũ/ (written ⟨u⟩) and /ə̃/ (written ⟨ʌ⟩}. Vowel length is indicated with a following colon, ⟨:⟩.

Like other Iroquois languages, Oneida has a relatively limited inventory of vowels and a fairly standard set of consonants, though it is exceptional for lacking bilabial consonants. According to Gick, "all consonants sound similar to English" with a few exceptions involving fricatives and the glottal stop. Oneida lacks bilabial stops and labiodental fricatives. Oneida segments are largely CV, and VV appears in disyllabic sequences ai, ae, ao, and au. Consonants can also cluster in particular arrangements up to CCCCC in the word-medial position; word-initial or word-final clusters are limited to CCC. Oneida generally accents on the penultimate syllable, and shares with Mohawk the "PLI rules that… lengthen an accented open penult". Basic register tone results from the Oneida accent system but is not contrastive.