Uto-Aztecan | |
---|---|
Geographic distribution | Western United States, Mexico |
Native speakers | 1,900,412 (2014) |
Linguistic classification | One of the world's primary language families |
Proto-language | Proto-Uto-Aztecan |
Subdivisions | |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-5 | azc |
Glottolog | utoa1244 |
Pre-contact distribution of Uto-Aztecan languages | |
Current extent of Uto-Aztecan languages in Mexico |
The Uto-Aztecan [a] languages [b] are a family of indigenous languages of the Americas, consisting of over thirty languages. Uto-Aztecan languages are found almost entirely in the Western United States and Mexico. The name of the language family reflects the common ancestry of the Ute language of Utah and the Nahuan languages (also known as Aztecan) of Mexico.
The Uto-Aztecan language family is one of the largest linguistic families in the Americas in terms of number of speakers, number of languages, and geographic extension. [2] The northernmost Uto-Aztecan language is Shoshoni, which is spoken as far north as Salmon, Idaho, while the southernmost is the Nawat language of El Salvador and Nicaragua. [3] [4] [5] Ethnologue gives the total number of languages in the family as 61, and the total number of speakers as 1,900,412. [6] Speakers of Nahuatl languages account for over 85% of these.
The internal classification of the family often divides it into two branches: a northern branch including all the languages of the US and a southern branch including all the languages of Mexico, although it is still being discussed whether this is best understood as a genetic classification or as a geographical one. Below this level of classification the main branches are well accepted: Numic (including languages such as Comanche and Shoshoni) and the Californian languages (formerly known as the Takic group, including Cahuilla and Luiseño) account for most of the Northern languages. Hopi and Tübatulabal are languages outside those groups. The Southern languages are divided into the Tepiman languages (including O'odham and Tepehuán), the Tarahumaran languages (including Raramuri and Guarijio), the Cahitan languages (including Yaqui and Mayo), the Coracholan languages (including Cora and Huichol), and the Nahuan languages.
The homeland of the Uto-Aztecan languages is generally considered to have been in the Southwestern United States or possibly Northwestern Mexico. An alternative theory has proposed the possibility that the language family originated in southern Mexico, within the Mesoamerican language area, but this has not been generally considered convincing.
Uto-Aztecan languages are spoken in the North American mountain ranges and adjacent lowlands of the western United States in the states of Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Utah, California, Nevada, and Arizona. In Mexico, they are spoken in the states of Sonora, Sinaloa, Chihuahua, Nayarit, Durango, Zacatecas, Jalisco, Michoacán, Guerrero, San Luis Potosí, Hidalgo, Puebla, Veracruz, Morelos, Estado de México, and in Mexico City. Classical Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs, and its modern relatives are part of the Uto-Aztecan family. The Pipil language, an offshoot of Nahuatl, spread to Central America by a wave of migration from Mexico, and formerly had many speakers there. Now it has gone extinct in Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua, and it is nearly extinct in western El Salvador, all areas dominated by use of Spanish.
Uto-Aztecan has been accepted by linguists as a language family since the early 1900s, and six subgroups are generally accepted as valid: Numic, Takic, Pimic, Taracahitic, Corachol, and Aztecan. That leaves two ungrouped languages: Tübatulabal and Hopi (sometimes termed "isolates within the family"). Some recent studies have begun to question the unity of Taracahitic and Takic and computer-assisted statistical studies have begun to question some of the long-held assumptions and consensuses. As to higher-level groupings, disagreement has persisted since the 19th century. Presently scholars also disagree as to where to draw language boundaries within the dialect continua.
The similarities among the Uto-Aztecan languages were noted as early as 1859 by J. C. E. Buschmann, but he failed to recognize the genetic affiliation between the Aztecan branch and the rest. He ascribed the similarities between the two groups to diffusion. Daniel Garrison Brinton added the Aztecan languages to the family in 1891 and coined the term Uto-Aztecan. John Wesley Powell, however, rejected the claim in his own classification of North American indigenous languages (also published in 1891). Powell recognized two language families: "Shoshonean" (encompassing Takic, Numic, Hopi, and Tübatulabal) and "Sonoran" (encompassing Pimic, Taracahitan, and Corachol). In the early 1900s Alfred L. Kroeber filled in the picture of the Shoshonean group, [7] while Edward Sapir proved the unity among Aztecan, "Sonoran", and "Shoshonean". [8] [9] [10] Sapir's applications of the comparative method to unwritten Native American languages are regarded as groundbreaking.[ citation needed ] Voegelin, Voegelin & Hale (1962) argued for a three-way division of Shoshonean, Sonoran and Aztecan, following Powell. [11]
As of about 2011, there is still debate about whether to accept the proposed basic split between "Northern Uto-Aztecan" and "Southern Uto-Aztecan" languages. [2] Northern Uto-Aztecan corresponds to Powell's "Shoshonean", and the latter is all the rest: Powell's "Sonoran" plus Aztecan. Northern Uto-Aztecan was proposed as a genetic grouping by Jeffrey Heath in Heath (1978) based on morphological evidence, and Alexis Manaster Ramer in Manaster Ramer (1992) adduced phonological evidence in the form of a sound law. Terrence Kaufman in Kaufman (1981) accepted the basic division into Northern and Southern branches as valid. Other scholars have rejected the genealogical unity of either both nodes or the Northern node alone. [12] [13] [14] [15] Wick R. Miller's argument was statistical, arguing that Northern Uto-Aztecan languages displayed too few cognates to be considered a unit. On the other hands he found the number of cognates among Southern Uto-Aztecan languages to suggest a genetic relation. [14] This position was supported by subsequent lexicostatistic analyses by Cortina-Borja & Valiñas-Coalla (1989) and Cortina-Borja, Stuart-Smith & Valiñas-Coalla (2002). Reviewing the debate, Haugen (2008) considers the evidence in favor of the genetic unity of Northern Uto-Aztecan to be convincing, but remains agnostic on the validity of Southern Uto-Aztecan as a genetic grouping. Hill (2011) also considered the North/South split to be valid based on phonological evidence, confirming both groupings. Merrill (2013) adduced further evidence for the unity of Southern Uto-Aztecan as a valid grouping.
Hill (2011) also rejected the validity of the Takic grouping decomposing it into a Californian areal grouping together with Tubatulabal.
Some classifications have posited a genetic relation between Corachol and Nahuan (e.g. Merrill (2013)). Kaufman recognizes similarities between Corachol and Aztecan, but explains them by diffusion instead of genetic evolution. [16] Most scholars view the breakup of Proto-Uto-Aztecan as a case of the gradual disintegration of a dialect continuum. [17]
Below is a representation of the internal classification of the language family based on Shaul (2014). The classification reflects the decision to split up the previous Taracahitic and Takic groups, that are no longer considered to be valid genetic units. Whether the division between Northern and Southern languages is best understood as geographical or phylogenetic is under discussion. The table contains demographic information about number of speakers and their locations based on data from The Ethnologue. The table also contains links to a selected bibliography of grammars, dictionaries on many of the individual languages.(† = extinct)
Genealogical classification of Uto-Aztecan languages | ||||||
Family | Groups | Languages | Where spoken and approximate number of speakers | Works | ||
Uto-Aztecan languages | Northern Uto-Aztecan (possibly an areal grouping) | Numic | Western Numic | Paviotso, Bannock, Northern Paiute | 700 speakers in California, Oregon, Idaho and Nevada | Nichols (1973) |
Mono | About 40 speakers in California | Lamb (1958) | ||||
Central Numic | Shoshoni, Goshiute | 1000 fluent speakers and 1000 learners in Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, Idaho | McLaughlin (2012) | |||
Comanche | 100 speakers in Oklahoma | Robinson & Armagost (1990) | ||||
Timbisha (Panamint) | 20 speakers in California and Nevada | Dayley (1989) | ||||
Southern Numic | Colorado River dialect chain: Ute, Southern Paiute, Chemehuevi | 920 speakers of all dialects, in Colorado, Nevada, California, Utah, Arizona | Givón (2011), Press (1979), Sapir (1992) | |||
Kawaiisu | 5 speakers in California | Zigmond, Booth & Munro (1991) | ||||
Californian language area | Serran | Serrano, Kitanemuk † | No native speakers | Hill (1967) | ||
Cupan | Cahuilla, Cupeño | 35 speakers of Cahuilla, no native speakers of Cupeño | Seiler (1977), Hill (2005) | |||
Luiseño-Juaneño | 5 speakers in Southern California | Kroeber & Grace (1960) | ||||
Tongva (Gabrielino-Fernandeño) | Last native speakers died in early 1900s, in 21st century undergoing revival efforts, Southern California | Munro & Gabrielino/Tongva Language Committee (2008) | ||||
Hopi | Hopi | 6,800 speakers in northeastern Arizona | Hopi Dictionary Project (1998), Jeanne (1978) | |||
Tübatulabal | Tübatulabal | Currently spoken by growing community of speakers [18] | Voegelin (1935), Voegelin (1958) | |||
Southern Uto-Aztecan (possibly an areal grouping) | Tepiman | Pimic | O'odham (Pima-Papago) | 14,000 speakers in southern Arizona, US and northern Sonora, Mexico | Zepeda (1983) | |
Pima Bajo (O'ob No'ok) | 650 speakers in Chihuahua and Sonora, Mexico | Estrada-Fernández (1998) | ||||
Tepehuan | Northern Tepehuan | 6,200 speakers in Chihuahua, Mexico | Bascom (1982) | |||
Southern Tepehuan | 10,600 speakers in Southeastern Durango | Willett (1991) | ||||
Tepecano † | Extinct since approx. 1985, spoken in Northern Jalisco | Mason (1916) | ||||
Tarahumaran | Tarahumara (several varieties) | 45,500 speakers of all varieties, all spoken in Chihuahua | Caballero (2008) | |||
Upriver Guarijio, Downriver Guarijio | 2,840 speakers in Chihuahua and Sonora | Miller (1996) | ||||
Tubar † | Spoken in Sinaloa and Sonora | Lionnet (1978) | ||||
Cahita | Yaqui (Hiaki) | 11,800 in Sonora and Arizona | Dedrick & Casad (1999) | |||
Mayo | 33,000 in Sinaloa and Sonora | Freeze (1989) | ||||
Opatan | Ópata † | Extinct since approx. 1930. Spoken in Sonora. | Shaul (2001) | |||
Eudeve † | Spoken in Sonora, but extinct since 1940 | Lionnet (1986) | ||||
Corachol | Cora | 13,600 speakers in northern Nayarit | Casad (1984) | |||
Huichol | 17,800 speakers in Nayarit, Jalisco, and western Zacatecas. | Iturrioz Leza & Ramírez de la Cruz (2001) | ||||
Aztecan (Nahuan) | Pochutec † | Extinct since 1970s, spoken on the coast of Oaxaca | Boas (1917) | |||
Core Nahuan | Pipil | 20-40 speakers in El Salvador | Campbell (1985) | |||
Nahuatl | 1,500,000 speakers in Central Mexico | Launey (1986), Langacker (1979) |
In addition to the above languages for which linguistic evidence exists, it is suspected that among dozens of now extinct, undocumented or poorly known languages of northern Mexico, many were Uto-Aztecan. [19]
A large number of languages known only from brief mentions are thought to have been Uto-Aztecan languages that became extinct before being documented. [20]
An "Aztec–Tanoan" macrofamily that unites the Uto-Aztecan languages with the Tanoan languages of the southwestern United States was first proposed by Edward Sapir in the early 20th century, and later supported with potential lexical evidence by other scholars. This proposal has received much criticism about the validity of the proposed cognate sets and has been largely abandoned since the end of the last century as unproven. [21]
Benjamin Lee Whorf was an American linguist and fire prevention engineer best known for proposing the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis. He believed that the structures of different languages shape how their speakers perceive and conceptualize the world. Whorf saw this idea, named after him and his mentor Edward Sapir, as having implications similar to those of Einstein's principle of physical relativity. However, the concept originated from 19th-century philosophy and thinkers like Wilhelm von Humboldt and Wilhelm Wundt.
Edward Sapir was an American anthropologist-linguist, who is widely considered to be one of the most important figures in the development of the discipline of linguistics in the United States.
Hopi is a Uto-Aztecan language spoken by the Hopi people of northeastern Arizona, United States.
Penutian is a proposed grouping of language families that includes many Native American languages of western North America, predominantly spoken at one time in British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, and California. The existence of a Penutian stock or phylum has been the subject of debate among specialists. Even the unity of some of its component families has been disputed. Some of the problems in the comparative study of languages within the phylum are the result of their early extinction and limited documentation.
Numic is the northernmost branch of the Uto-Aztecan language family. It includes seven languages spoken by Native American peoples traditionally living in the Great Basin, Colorado River basin, Snake River basin, and southern Great Plains. The word Numic comes from the cognate word in all Numic languages for “person”, which reconstructs to Proto-Numic as. For example, in the three Central Numic languages and the two Western Numic languages it is. In Kawaiisu it is and in Colorado River, and.
The Nahuan or Aztecan languages are those languages of the Uto-Aztecan language family that have undergone a sound change, known as Whorf's law, that changed an original *t to before *a. Subsequently, some Nahuan languages have changed this to or back to, but it can still be seen that the language went through a stage. The best known Nahuan language is Nahuatl. Nahuatl is spoken by about 1.7 million Nahua peoples.
Mono is a Native American language of the Numic group of Uto-Aztecan languages, the ancestral language of the Mono people. Mono consists of two dialects, Eastern and Western. The name "Monachi" is commonly used in reference to Western Mono and "Owens Valley Paiute" in reference to Eastern Mono. In 1925, Alfred Kroeber estimated that Mono had 3,000 to 4,000 speakers. As of 1994, only 37 elderly people spoke Mono as their first language. It is classified as critically endangered by UNESCO. It is spoken in the southern Sierra Nevada, the Mono Basin, and the Owens Valley of central-eastern California. Mono is most closely related to Northern Paiute; these two are classified as the Western group of the Numic branch of the Uto-Aztecan language family.
Tübatulabal is an Uto-Aztecan language, traditionally spoken in Kern County, California, United States. It is the traditional language of the Tübatulabal, who still speak the traditional language in addition to English. The language originally had three main dialects: Bakalanchi, Pakanapul and Palegawan.
The Tübatulabal are an indigenous people of Kern River Valley in the Sierra Nevada range of California. They may have been the first people to make this area their permanent home. Today many of them are enrolled in the Tule River Indian Tribe. They are descendants of the people of the Uto-Aztecan language group, separating from Shoshone people about 3000 years ago.
Northern Paiute, endonym Numu or nɨɨmɨ, also known as Paviotso, is a Western Numic language of the Uto-Aztecan family, which according to Marianne Mithun had around 500 fluent speakers in 1994. It is closely related to the Mono language.
Pochutec is an extinct Uto-Aztecan language of the Nahuan branch which was spoken in and around the town of Pochutla on the Pacific coast of Oaxaca, Mexico. In 1917, it was documented in a monograph by Franz Boas, who considered the language nearly extinct. In the 1970s, another investigator found two speakers around Pochutla who still remembered a few of the words recorded by Boas.
Colorado River Numic, of the Numic branch of the Uto-Aztecan language family, is a dialect chain that stretches from southeastern California to Colorado. Individual dialects are Chemehuevi, which is in danger of extinction, Southern Paiute, and Ute. According to the Ethnologue, there were a little less than two thousand speakers of Colorado River Numic Language in 1990, or around 40% out of an ethnic population of 5,000.
Huasteca Nahuatl is a Nahuan language spoken by over a million people in the region of La Huasteca in Mexico, centered in the states of Hidalgo (Eastern) and San Luis Potosí (Western).
The Kawaiisu language is a Uto-Aztecan language spoken by the Kawaiisu people of California.
Proto-Nahuan is a hypothetical daughter language of the Proto-Uto-Aztecan language. It is the common ancestor from which the modern Nahuan languages have developed.
Nahuatl, Aztec, or Mexicano is a language or, by some definitions, a group of languages of the Uto-Aztecan language family. Varieties of Nahuatl are spoken by about 1.7 million Nahuas, most of whom live mainly in Central Mexico and have smaller populations in the United States.
Proto-Uto-Aztecan is the hypothetical common ancestor of the Uto-Aztecan languages. Authorities on the history of the language group have usually placed the Proto-Uto-Aztecan homeland in the border region between the United States and Mexico, namely the upland regions of Arizona and New Mexico and the adjacent areas of the Mexican states of Sonora and Chihuahua, roughly corresponding to the Sonoran Desert and the western part of the Chihuahuan Desert. It would have been spoken by Mesolithic foragers in Aridoamerica, about 5,000 years ago.
Charles Frederick "Carl" Voegelin, often cited as C. F. Voegelin, was an American linguist and anthropologist. He was one of the leading authorities on Indigenous languages of North America, specifically the Algonquian and Uto-Aztecan languages. He published many influential works on Delaware, Shawnee, Hopi and the Tübatulabal languages.
Whorf's law is a sound law in Uto-Aztecan linguistics proposed by the linguist Benjamin Lee Whorf. It explains the origin in the Nahuan languages of the phoneme which is not found in any of the other languages of the Uto-Aztecan family. The existence of in Nahuatl had puzzled previous linguists and caused Edward Sapir to reconstruct a phoneme for Proto-Uto-Aztecan based only on evidence from Aztecan. In a 1937 paper published in the journal American Anthropologist, Whorf argued that phoneme was a result of some of the Nahuan or Aztecan languages having undergone a sound change changing the original */t/ to in the position before */a/. The sound law was labeled "Whorf's law" by Manaster Ramer and is still widely though not universally considered valid, although a more detailed understanding of the precise conditions under which it took place has been developed.
Florence Marie "Flo" Voegelin, also known as Florence Marie Robinett and Florence Marie Robinett Voegelin, was an American anthropologist and linguist. She was a prominent figure in the documentation of the indigenous languages of North America, and co-wrote many articles and books with her second husband, Carl Voegelin. She also published under the name F.M. Voegelin and other variants.
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