Oneida Language Project Credits

The Oneida Teaching Grammar has developed in various drafts over the past ten years. It is informed by Oneida classes taught at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, by the Wisconsin community of Oneida speakers, and by discussions with linguist colleagues (principally Marianne Mithun, Wallace Chafe, Karin Michelson, Michael Foster, and Hanni Woodbury). This version was completed with the support of a sabbatical semester for Clifford Abbott in 2006.

The Oneida dictionary was constructed from revisions to a database used to produce Abbott, Christjohn, and Hinton An Oneida Dictionary 1996. That database was developed from a WPA text collection from the 1930s (involving the work of Oneida speakers Andrew Beechtree, Dennison Hill, LaFront King, Guy Elm, Ida Blackhawk, John Skenandore, Lewis Webster, Oscar Archiquette, Stadler King, Tillie Baird, David Skenandore, Walter Skenandore, and Alex Metoxen, led by Floyd Lounsbury); preliminary work on those texts by Clifford Abbott in the 1970s, supported by a NEH fellowship; several decades of field work with Oneida speakers from Wisconsin (Dorothy Tallakson, Melinda Doxtator, Lawrence John, Melissa Cornelius, Amos Christjohn, Maria Hinton, Mary Jourdan, Flora Skenandore, Rebecca Ninham, Lloyd Schuyler, Mamie Ryan, Bob Brown, Ruth Baird, Absalom Cooper, Sarah Skenandore, Cynthia Farmer, Leona Doxtator, and Vera House); some work as part of the Oneida Language Project 1975-85, supported by HEW and OE grants; publication preparation supported by a grant from the National Park Service in the 1990s; technical support from a number of people, especially Yuri Burrows and Andy Speth at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay; and the database expertise of William Shay of the faculty there. Sound in the dictionary is provided by Maria Hinton.

Floyd Lounsbury working with Lydia (Isaac) Green, a Cayuga speaker, in 1960

This website was developed as part of a sabbatical project to Clifford Abbott with considerable support from the very patient people of the Learning Technology Center at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. Photos by Jacob Abbott and from the Oneida Cultural Heritage Department. Wampum belts are replicas created by Forrest Brooks of Oneida, Wisconsin.