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Oneida ( ,Laurie Bauer, 2007, The Linguistics Student's Handbook, Edinburgh autonym: /onʌjotaʔaːka/, /onʌjoteʔaːkaː/, People of the Standing Stone, Latilutakowa, Ukwehunwi, Nihatiluhta:ko) is an Iroquoian language spoken primarily by the Oneida tribe people in the U.S. states of New York and Wisconsin, and the Canadian province of Ontario. There is only a small handful of native speakers remaining today. Language revitalization efforts are in progress.
In 1994, the majority of Oneida speakers lived in Canada.Moseley, Christopher and R. E. Asher, ed. Atlas of World Languages (New York: Routelege, 1994) p. 7
According to the National Virtual Translation Center, there are 250 speakers of Oneida, located in the Wisconsin and Ontario nations. Another source specifies that, in 1991, 200 Oneida speakers resided in the Thames (Ontario) Nation, and 50 in Wisconsin.See Ethnologue's page. Like many Indigenous peoples, the Oneida adopted and assimilated individuals of other tribes captured in warfare, and they would learn Oneida. Today the vast majority of current speakers are of Oneida descent.
The Iroquois used three separate common names for these similar narratives: "things which truly happened," "it is as if an animal walked," and "they went to the woods to hunt for meat". Respectively, these are stories of the mythology of the supernatural, of (often anthropomorphism) animals, and of parables or fables of human deeds. The Oneida similarly have an extensive tradition of formal oratory and ritual tradition. Many Oneida political and diplomacy processes are highly formalized in this way, and spoken words are reinforced by the use of wampum, strings of symbolic shell beads, both in gesturing and as a gift indicating truth or seriousness.
The condolence ceremony, a ritual of succession of tribal chief, played a central role in the maintenance of the Iroquois Confederacy; the Three Bare Words ceremony, a opening of the eyes, ears, and throat, preceded any diplomacy. Religious rituals as well made specific use of prescribed language, including the Onnonhouaroia (winter solstice) ceremony, a psychologically oriented celebration of dreams, and shamanism medicine ceremonies Traditions of both oral narrative as well as ritual are in general a lesser part of Oneida culture today than they were up until post-colonial times. As the clan leaders indicate, the culture is valued, and the Oneida language is integral in enacting that culture.
During the Depression era, the Folklore Project was created to preserve and promote the Oneida language.
Due to its disuse as a common communicative language – and its extensive use as a prescribed ritual language – the alteration of Oneida by its speakers is minimized. Demus Elm's retelling of the Creation Story, a linguistic act for which the form is not tightly prescribed, has limited space for language change. But, oral narratives change over time; Anthony Wonderley confirms that they do. Having fewer speakers to tell the stories reduces possibilities for mutation. Gick notes one of several minor changes from Elm's morphology to Antone's over the 25-year span between their narratives: the omission of the final syllable from one particular verb. He assesses that "such differences simply indicate the two speakers' different ways of storytelling, or of speaking in general," rather than an appreciable linguistic shift.
The UNESCO Major Evaluative Factors of Language Vitality consists of a detailed set of nine factors to access the vitality of a language. According to Factor 1: Intergenerational Transmission, Oneida is graded as a 1 or a degree of critically endangered. Oneida is used by very few speakers and most users are among the great-grandparent generation. Oneida is primarily spoken by the elders or leaders in the community, but the majority of speakers use it as a secondary language. Factor 2: Absolute Number of Speakers would consider Oneida critically endangered because of the low number of speakers in the population makes it vulnerable. The 2016 Canadian Census lists 55 mother tongue Oneida speakers in Ontario, making it at risk. Oneida would be graded as a 1 or a degree of highly limited domains on Factor 4: Trends in Existing Language Domains scale. Under this categorization, Oneida is used only in very restricted domains and for few functions. Oneida is spoken in the community for formal purposes surrounding topics related to their culture.
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 (www.oneidaindiannation.com; www.oneidanation.org; www.oneida.on.ca/index.htm) publicizing the current events of the tribes and their governmental actions. 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, Traci. "Oneida Nation Unveils New Web Home," Central New York Business Journal 19 Sep 2008: 16. These sites use a limited amount of Oneida language, almost exclusively in a context of explicit cultural preservation. The Oneida Nation of the Thames utilize their website to provide the public with information about their people, culture, community, and plans for the future. The site links to the Oneida Language and Cultural Centre website which provides additional information about the Oneida culture with links to videos, clothing, cultural symbols, prayers, clans, recipes, songs, stories, and history. In addition, information about Oneida language learning resources include lessons, classroom resources, learning resources, games, language proficiency tests, podcasts, written and spoken dictionaries, and videos to learn the language through their website.
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. "Language Dreams Take Form" . Aug 12, 2008. The Berlitz representative acting as liaison to the Oneida Nation identified the task as a particularly difficult one:
Berlitz divides languages into two sections of difficulty, A and B ... I'm going to make up a C list for Oneida. It is a very hard language. It will take a student more hours to learn because of the vocabulary. Word lengths are so long. Learning English can be compared to a train with one car following another and another; in Oneida it's a circle.
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.
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.
Primary products of documentation can be found at the Smithsonian Institution, the American Philosophical Society, Syracuse University Library, and The Oneida Language Audio Collection. The archives include documents relating to vocabulary, grammar, prayers, handwritten letters, photographs, census copies, exhibitions, books, manuscripts, pamphlets, analytics, maps, correspondences, documents, and audio files. Additionally, secondary products of documentation consist of dictionaries, grammar information, and texts. The dictionaries consist of complete entries of all Oneida lexicon, while grammar books describe sounds, words and sentence structure, and meanings. Among the texts, stories, hymns, prayers, videos, songs, language learning resources, and websites are present.
Under the leadership of Chief Good Peter, and against the rest of the Iroquois Confederacy, the Oneida backed the United States in the Revolutionary War. Oneida Castle at Primes Hill was destroyed in 1780 by loyalist forces, beginning a difficult era for the Oneida that resulted in their subsequent nearly complete assimilation into the new American way of life with respect to appearance, technology, and lifestyle Almost immediately after the end of hostilities, however, they suffered severe political abuse by the State of New York, and the vast majority of Oneida land was annexed. During this time, portions of the tribe broke off and relocated to Wisconsin and Ontario. This process of sequestration and demoralization culminated in 1850 with the appropriation by the City of Utica of the Oneida Stone, a long-standing symbol of the Nation.
Within the last ten to twenty years, the Oneida Nation of New York has been greatly revitalized by the establishment of the Turning Stone Resort and Casino. The funds generated from this enterprise have enabled the Nation to direct substantial effort to rebuilding both culture and territory (www.oneidaindiannation.com) and have led to the formation of a variety of other Nation-owned businesses (www.onenterprises.com). Most notably, in April 2005, the Oneida Nation of New York filed an ultimately successful application for federal land-into-trust territorial organization, limiting jurisdiction and tax liability, of Oneida territory to the Nation and the federal government.Gregory, Traci. "Breaking down the Ruling on the Nation's Properties," Central New York Business Journal 6 Jun 2008: 3.
There are four oral vowels, , and two nasal vowels, (written ) and (written ). 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.See National Virtual Translation Center. Iroquoian Language Family (Accessed 1 Dec 2008). Oneida syllables 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.
Oneida exhibits three parts of speech: Verb, Noun, and particles. Adjectives are described as Attributive verb in all cases. Verbs are always marked for person and gender, of which there are 4 (masculine, neuter, feminine-zoic, and feminine-indefinite). There is one main difference between the two feminine genders, in that the feminine-indefinite is always used as an epicene, while the feminine-zoic is used for both inanimate referents and feminine animals. Other differences are controversial between speakers, although the use of the feminine-zoic can indicate a more Formality level relation, while the feminine-indefinite can indicate a Formality level relation. Abbott, Clifford (1984). "Two Feminine Genders in Oneida" . Anthropological Linguistics. 26 (2): 125–137. .
To say two of any object involves the following pattern:
(Oneida Indian Nation 34–36)
In the words of Ray Halbritter, the National Representative of the New York Oneida Nation: "Oneidas have a history as distinguished and tragic as that of any people. ... But there is nothing traditional about poverty and despair. ... As soon as we built up resources from gaming and other enterprises, we turned back to our cultural heritage strongly committed to preserve and revitalize it". Today, the Oneida language and the long history it encompasses is jeopardized by the limited number of speakers and the danger of cultural irrelevance, but the zeal of its leaders for the preservation of the culture may maintain the life of the language. Through the work of Floyd Lounsbury and others, texts "of great linguistic value" like Elm and Antone's serve to accomplish this purpose.
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