Tepehuán language
| Tepehuán | |
|---|---|
| O'otham | |
| Native to | Mexico |
| Region | Chihuahua, Durango |
| Ethnicity | Tepehuán |
Native speakers | 55,000 (2020 census)[1] |
| Dialects | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | Variously:ntp – Northern Tepehuánstp – Southeastern Tepehuántla – Southwestern Tepehuántep – 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
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
Southern Tepehuán is spoken by about 45,000 people,[1] about equally divided into:
- Southeastern Tepehuán in Mezquital Municipio in the state of Durango.
- Southwestern Tepehuán in southwestern Durango.
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.
Media
Tepehuán-language programming is carried by the CDI's radio stations XEJMN-AM, broadcasting from Jesús María, Nayarit, and XETAR, based in Guachochi, Chihuahua.
Morphology
Tepehuán is an agglutinative language, in which words use suffix complexes for a variety of purposes with several morphemes strung together.
Phonology
Northern Tepehuan
The following is representative of the Northern dialect of Tepehuan.[3]
Vowels
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | ɨ | u |
| Mid | o | ||
| Open | a |
Consonants
| 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.
Southern Tepehuan
The following is representative of the Southeastern dialect of Tepehuan.[4]
Vowels
| Front | Back | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | ɯ | u |
| Mid | ʌ | o | |
| Open | ɑ | ||
Consonants
| 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.
Sample Tepehuan Text
Northern Tepehuan:
|
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Southeastern Tepehuan:
|
|
Further reading
- Gil Burgoin, Carlos Ivanhoe (2021). "Northern Tepehuan". Illustrations of the IPA. Journal of the International Phonetic Association: 1–17. doi:10.1017/S002510032100013X, with supplementary sound recordings.
References
- ^ a b c Lenguas indígenas y hablantes de 3 años y más, 2020 INEGI. Censo de Población y Vivienda 2020.
- ^ "Catálogo de las Lenguas Indígenas Nacionales".
- ^ Bascom, Burton (1982). Northern Tepehuan. Studies in Uto-Aztecan grammar 3: Uto-Aztecan grammatical sketches: Summer Institute of Linguistics. pp. 267–393.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link) - ^ Willett, Thomas L. (1988). A Reference Grammar of Southeastern Tepehuan.
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