Tepehuán | |
---|---|
O'otham | |
Native to | Mexico |
Region | Chihuahua, Durango |
Ethnicity | Tepehuán |
Native speakers | 55,000 (2020 census) [1] |
Uto-Aztecan
| |
Dialects | |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | Variously:
ntp – Northern Tepehuán
stp – Southeastern Tepehuán
tla – Southwestern Tepehuán
tep –
Tepecano |
Glottolog |
tepe1281 |
Northern Tepehuán is classified as Critically Endangered by the
UNESCO
Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger | |
Southwestern Tepehuán is classified as Vulnerable by the
UNESCO
Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger |
Tepehuán (Tepehuano) is the name of three closely related languages of the Piman branch of the Uto-Aztecan language family, all spoken in northern Mexico. The language is called O'otham by its speakers.
Northern Tepehuán is spoken by about 10,000 people (2020 census) [1] in several settlements in Guadalupe y Calvo and Guachochi, Chihuahua, as well as in the north of Durango. [2]
Southern Tepehuán is spoken by about 45,000 people, [1] about equally divided into:
Southern Tepehuán coexists with the Mexicanero language; there is some intermarriage between the two ethnic groups, and a number of speakers are trilingual in Mexicanero, Tepehuán and Spanish.
Tepehuán-language programming is carried by the CDI's radio stations XEJMN-AM, broadcasting from Jesús María, Nayarit, and XETAR, based in Guachochi, Chihuahua.
Tepehuán is an agglutinative language, in which words use suffix complexes for a variety of purposes with several morphemes strung together.
The following is representative of the Northern dialect of Tepehuan. [3]
Front | Central | Back | |
---|---|---|---|
Close | i | ɨ | u |
Mid | o | ||
Open | a |
Labial | Alveolar |
Post- alveolar |
Palatal | Velar | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Plosive | voiceless | p | t | tʲ | k | |
voiced | b | d | dʲ | ɡ | ||
Affricate | t͡ʃ | |||||
Fricative | v | s | ʃ | x | ||
Nasal | m | n | ɲ | |||
Rhotic | r | |||||
Approximant | l |
Nasal consonants /n, ɲ/ become [ ŋ] when preceding a velar consonant.
The following is representative of the Southeastern dialect of Tepehuan. [4]
Front | Back | ||
---|---|---|---|
Close | i | ɯ | u |
Mid | ʌ | o | |
Open | ɑ |
Labial | Alveolar |
Post- alveolar |
Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Plosive | voiceless | p | t | k | ʔ | ||
voiced | b | d | ɡ | ||||
Affricate | voiceless | t͡ʃ | |||||
voiced | d͡ʒ | ɣ͡ʎ | |||||
Fricative | v | s | ʃ | h | |||
Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ||||
Rhotic | ɾ | ||||||
Approximant | ( l) | j |
/v/ is sometimes realized as [ f] in word-final position. /l/ appears only in loanwords from Spanish.
Northern Tepehuan:
|
|
Southeastern Tepehuan:
|
|
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