Gayogohó:nǫˀ Language

 

About the Language

As of 2022, the Gayogohó:nǫˀ (Cayuga) language is spoken as a first language by fewer than a dozen people at Ohswé:gęˀ (Six Nations of the Grand River reserve in Canada) and around Cayuga Lake in New York State. It is related to the other Hodinǫhsǫ́:nih languages of Onǫdawáˀga:ˀ (Seneca), Onǫdagehó:nǫˀ (Onondaga), Onę́yotga:ˀ (Oneida), Ganyę́gehó:nǫˀ (Mohawk), and Dahsgaó:węˀ (Tuscarora), as well as Wendat (Huron), Wandat (Wyandot), and Cherokee.

Gayogohó:nǫˀ is unrelated to English or any other Indo-European languages. It is structured quite differently and is more grammatically complex than English. Words may be comprised of many different parts, and the language includes very few stand-alone nouns. This feature allows Gayogohó:nǫˀ to be a very descriptive language.

Take, for instance, the word dewáhǫhde:s, which means deer. This word is comprised of the parts de-, which means “two,” -wa-, which means “it,” -hǫhd-, which means “ear(s),” and -es, which means “long.” Therefore, dewáhǫhde:s would literally translate as: "It has two long ears," which is a fitting description of a deer.

What Do Those Symbols Mean?

The Gayogohó:nǫˀ language is written using a few symbols that may be strange to monolingual English speakers, but each one is important.

  • When an accent is placed over a vowel, like the "ó" in "Gayogohó:nǫˀ," it means that that syllable is said with a higher pitch than other syllables. This is a little like stressed syllables in English.

  • A colon (:) is a slow-marker. The vowel it follows is slower or extended longer than other vowels.

  • The curl or angle under some vowels, "ǫ" or "ę," means that those vowels are nasalized. Nasal vowels are produced with air moving through the nose, similar to if they had an "n" after them. A plain "o" sounds like the vowel in "so," but an "ǫ" sounds more like in "sewn;" a plain "e" sounds like the vowel in "day," but "ę" is more like "den."

  • When a vowel is underlined, that means it's a ghost vowel or devoiced vowel. This means it's sort of whispery, very short and quiet—so much that you can't really hear it.

  • Finally, the ˀ is a glottal stop, the same sound as in the middle of the word "kitten," when pronounced without touching your tongue to the roof of your mouth. This sound may sometimes also be typed with an apostrophe, but it's better to write it with a sharp angle or the glottal stop diacritic, which looks like a raised (and smaller) question mark missing the dot.

Explore Further

Check out these great resources to practice Gayogohó:nǫˀ pronunciation and learn more about Gayogohó:nǫˀ language and history.