Arizona, a state in the southwestern region of the
United States of America, is known for its high population of
Native Americans. Arizona has the third highest number (and the sixth highest percentage) of Native Americans of any state in the Union (See
Demographics of Arizona). Out of the entire US population of 2.9 million Native Americans,[1] roughly 286,680 live in Arizona, representing 10% of the country's total Native American population. Only
California and
Oklahoma have more Native Americans than Arizona by number. Arizona also has the highest proportion of land allocated to Native American reservations, at 28%.[2] Arizona has five of the twelve
largest Indian reservations in the United States, including the largest, the
Navajo Nation, and the third-largest, the
Tohono O'odham Nation. Also, Arizona has the largest number of Native American language speakers in the United States.[3]
Distribution
There are twelve Native American languages spoken in Arizona, in addition to three other languages that are primarily spoken outside the state and one language with a disputed existence.
Population estimates are based on figures from Ethnologue and U.S. Census data, as given in sub-pages below. The twelve languages are shown in the table below:
In addition to the languages listed in the table above, there are three other Native American languages spoken in Arizona that are primarily found in
New Mexico, located immediately to the east:
Zuni is a
language isolate spoken primarily in the
Zuni Pueblo, which is located in northern New Mexico. Out of the approximately 10,000 people that form the
Zuni tribe, only 538 live in Arizona, located on trust lands in
Apache County. Unlike many other Native American languages, a vast majority of Zuni are able to speak their language, and Zuni is at a comparatively lower risk of extinction.[4]
Tewa is a
Tanoan language spoken by the
Tewa people of New Mexico. The
Arizona Tewa are a group of Tewa that currently reside on the
Hopi reservation of northeastern Arizona, primarily in two villages around
First Mesa: Hano and
Polacca. The Tewa language is considered endangered.
^"Archived copy"(PDF). Archived from
the original(PDF) on 2011-04-29. Retrieved 2014-05-07.{{
cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (
link) 2010 Census Bureau
^Newman, Stanley. (1996). Sketch of the Zuni language. In I. Goddard (Ed.) Handbook of North American Indians: Languages (Vol. 17, pp. 483–506). Washington: Smithsonian Institution.