Katie Klass

September 2014

WaⁿdatLanguage Presentation for

ǫmakyehstiʔ

Tribes in the area in the early 1600sWendat (Huron) Confederacy

Included five Tribes: Attignawantan, Attigneenongahac, Arendahronon, Tahontaenrat, and Ataronchronon

Tionontati (Petun) Tribe Atiwandaronk (Neutral) Tribe Wenro Tribe

Was part of the Atiwandaronk (Neutral) Tribe early onErie TribeIroquois (Five Nations) Confederacy

Included five Tribes: Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, and Mohawk

Brief History

Brief History, Cont.

1609The Wendat Confederacy encountered the French

1630sSeveral epidemics killed half the Wendat peopleTension was building because the Wendat Confederacy

allied with France and the Iroquois Confederacy allied with England in the fur trade, and the Iroquois Confederacy changed military tactics and began wiping out entire villages

1649The Wendat people left their villages on the Georgian BayThe Wendat Confederacy split off into many directions,

with some joining with other friendly tribes and some being absorbed into hostile tribes

Brief History, Cont.

Current location of linguistic Wendat and Tionontati descendantsHuron-Wendat Nation (Lorette, Canada)

Wyandot of Anderdon Nation (Trenton, Michigan)

Wyandot Nation of Kansas (Kansas City, Kansas)

Wyandotte Nation (Wyandotte, Oklahoma)

Brief History, Cont.

Closely related languages (sister languages)Northern Iroquoian

Lake IroquoianHuronian

Waⁿdat Wendat Tionontati, Atiwandaronk, Wenro, Erie

Five Nations Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga,

Susquehannock, Cayuga, SenecaCoast Iroquoian

Tuscarora, Nottoway, MeherrinSouthern Iroquoian

Cherokee

Language Context, Cont.

Our last Waⁿdat speakerFrank Wilson (pseudonym)Alive in 1972, and spoke only Waⁿdat as a child

Recordings in the 1950s and 1960sEx. Sarah Dushane in 1966 in Miami, OK

Marius BarbeauCanadian folklorist, lawyer, and anthropologist who

worked for the Geological Survey of CanadaRecorded Waⁿdat in 1911 and 1912In Craig’s database, 25,641 words were preserved

by Barbeau, and only 6,294 were preserved by others

Language Preservation

Bruce PearsonStarted working with the Wyandotte Nation in

1994Uses a version of Americanist transcription,

with some of Barbeau’s phonetic symbols maintained (ex. glottal stop is ʼ)

Compiled a handbook and dictionary of Waⁿdat based mostly on Barbeau’s 4o stories

Translated the 40 stories Barbeau recorded into Americanist transcription

Our Linguists

Craig Kopris Had contact with the Wyandot Nation of Kansas in

the 1990s, started working with Waⁿdat in 1991, started compiling the databases in 1997, began attending Culture Days in 2010

Uses a version of Americanist transcript, but does not maintain Barbeau’s symbols (ex. glottal stop is ʔ )

Has created three electronic databasesVocabulary – 31,935 entriesRoots – 1,147 entriesTexts – 48 preserved texts

Is currently putting together a high school level Waⁿdat language class

Our Linguists, Cont.

April 2012Recorded artifact words and The Young Woman

Fallen from Above story with Craig for the “Gathering of Traditions” Barbeau museum exhibit

June 2013Recorded conversational words and phrases

with Craig for the the 2013 Culture Days language presentation

My Experiences

Verbs are very important and usually consist of three elements:Verb root – Conveys the basic action or state of beingPronominal prefix – Identifies the person associated

with the action or state of beingSuffix – Indicates the status of the action or state of

being The way a word is pronounced can drastically

modify its meaning“H” can do more things than it can in English Has “ⁿd” and “ⁿg”Has “z” and “m”

Unique Waⁿdat Traits

Waⁿdat uses 14 consonants and seven vowelsAs opposed to the 24 consonants and 14 vowels in

English, but this also depends on your dialect Nasalized vowels

Ę – Like “mend” (not “med” or “meh”) ǫO – Like “honk” or “song”

New Sounds

Glottal stopsʔ – Like “uh-oh” or “hot tamale”

Pre-nasal stopsⁿd and ⁿg – With the “n” sound being very faint

Sounds you know but look differentŠ (s-wedge) – Like “sh”z (z-wedge) – Like “pleasure”

Consonants without aspiration (breathing out)KT

New Sounds, Cont.