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Cayuga

The Cayuga language is a member of the Iroquoian family of Native American languages. It is spoken by the Cayuga people, who live in southwestern New York state and northern Pennsylvania in the United States. The Cayuga language is considered endangered, with only a few hundred speakers remaining. Most Cayuga speakers are over the age of 60, and the language is not being passed down to younger generations. The Cayuga language is polysynthetic, meaning that words can be very long and complex. It is also highly inflected, with a large number of suffixes that can be added to words to change their meaning. Cayuga has a unique sound system, with a number of unusual consonants not found in other languages. Cayuga is an Iroquoian language, related to other languages spoken by Iroquoian-speaking peoples such as the Mohawk, Seneca, and Onondaga. The Cayuga people were part of the Five Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy, a powerful political and military alliance of Iroquoian-speaking peoples. The Iroquois Confederacy was based in what is now New York state, and the Cayuga people occupied lands in the southwestern part of the state. The Cayuga language began to decline in the late 1800s, as more and more Cayuga people began to speak English. English was the language of education and government, and Cayuga speakers found it difficult to get jobs and participate in society if they did not know English. By the mid-1900s, the Cayuga language was no longer being passed down to children, and its use began to rapidly decline. Today, there are only a few hundred Cayuga speakers remaining. Most of them are over the age of 60, and the language is not being passed down to younger generations. The Cayuga language is considered endangered, and efforts are being made to document and preserve the language.

Language group

Iroquoian languages

Language locales, regions and scripts

Cayuga
cay
Cayuga, Latin
cay-Latn