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// Workers AI · dad joke modeWhat did the Opata language say to the tourist? You're speaking my tongue.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ópata
Teguima
Vocabulary of the Opata language of unknown date and origin, part of the collection of the Cervantine Library in Monterrey
Native toMexico, U.S.
RegionSonora, Arizona
EthnicityOpata
Extinct1930s[1]
Revival21st century
Language codes
ISO 639-3opt
Glottologopat1247
ELPÓpata
  Opatan

Ópata (also Tegüima, Teguima, Tehuima, Tehui, Tonichi, Sonori and Ure; Opata: Teguima) is a Uto-Aztecan language, closely related to Eudeve, spoken by the Opata people of northern central Sonora in Mexico and Southeast of Arizona in the United States. It was believed to be dead already in 1930, and Carl Sofus Lumholtz reported the Opata to have become "Mexicanized" and lost their language and customs already when traveling through Sonora in the 1890s.

In a 1993 survey by the Instituto Nacional Indigenista, 15 people in the Mexican Federal District self-identified as speakers of Ópata.[2] This may not mean, however, that the language was actually living, since linguistic nomenclature in Mexico is notoriously fuzzy. Sometimes Eudeve is called Opata, a term which should be restricted to Teguima. Eudeve (which is split into the Heve (Egue) and Dohema dialects) and Teguima (also called Ópata, Ore) are distinct languages, but sometimes have been considered merely dialects of one single language. The INALI (Mexican National Institute for Indigenous Languages) does not count Opata among the currently extant indigenous languages of Mexico.[3]

Classification

[edit]

Opata had long been considered to be part of the Taracahitic languages, but this is no longer considered a valid genetic unit.[4][5][6][7]

Revival

[edit]

Although the Opata Nation, an unrecognized tribe, considers the language "inactive", they are in the process of its language revitalization.[8] The Fundación OPATA-TEGUIMA launched the first-ever Opata Living Dictionary in 2021 in collaboration with Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages.

Phonology

[edit]

Consonants

[edit]
Labial Dental Alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal
plain lab.
Nasal m n
Plosive/
Affricate		 voiceless p t͡s t t͡ʃ k ʔ
voiced b d͡z d ɡ ɡʷ
Fricative β θ s ʃ (x) h
Rhotic r ɾ
Approximant (w)
  • /h/ can also be heard as velar [x] in free variation.
  • /r/ is commonly articulated as dental [r̪], and can also be heard as aspirated [r̪ʰ] in free variation.
  • /ɾ/ can also be heard as a trill [r] in emphatic speech.
  • /ɡʷ/ may also be heard as [w] before /u/ in free variation.[9]
  • Intervocalic /t/ may of become [ɾ] judging by "xunuta" being borrowed into spanish as "sonora"

Vowels

[edit]
Front Central Back
Close i iː u uː
Mid e eː o oː
Open a aː

Morphology

[edit]

Opata is an agglutinative language, where words use suffix complexes for a variety of purposes with several morphemes strung together.

References

[edit]
  1. ↑ Ópata at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  2. ↑ "Opata | Ethnologue".
  3. ↑ INALI
  4. ↑ Shaul, D. L. (2014). A Prehistory of Western North America: The Impact of Uto-Aztecan Languages. UNM Press.
  5. ↑ Hill, J. H. (2011). Subgrouping in Uto-Aztecan. Language Dynamics and Change, 1(2), 241-278.
  6. ↑ De Wolf, P. (2001). Eudeve and Opata: a reassessment of their classification. Avances y balances de lenguas yutoaztecas, ed. by JL Moctezuma-Zamarrón and JH Hill, 237-65.
  7. ↑ Shaul, D. L. (1983). The position of Opata and Eudeve in Uto-Aztecan. Kansas Working Papers in Linguistics. Vol. 8, No. 2
  8. ↑ "Language - Official Opata Nation website". 2019-05-20. Retrieved 2025-01-20.
  9. ↑ Shaul, D. L. (1989). Teguima (Opata) phonology. Southwestern Journal of Linguistics, Vol. 9. pp. 150–162.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link) CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  • Lombardo, Natal. 1702. "Arte de la Lengua Teguima vulgarmente llamada Opata". México: Miguel de Ribera.
  • Lombardo, Natal. n.d., ca. 1702. Arte de la Lengua Teguima vulgarmente llamada Opata. Ayer ms. 1641. Newberry Library, Chicago.
  • Loaysa, Balthasar, unknown year, Arte de la lengua hegue. Ms. in Bibliothèque Nationale, París; copia de W.E. Gates en la Ayer Collection, Newberry Library, Chicago.
  • Lionnet, Andrés. 1979. El lexico del eudeve. Mimeography. Friends of Uto-Aztecan Working Conference, Instituto de Investigaciones Antropologicas, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, Mexico, June 23. : .
  • Miller, Wick R., 1983, "A Note on Extinct Languages of Northwest Mexico of Supposed Uto-Aztecan Affiliation", International Journal of American Linguistics, Vol. 49, No. 3, Papers Presented at a Symposium on Uto-Aztecan Historical Linguistics (Jul., 1983), pp. 328–334
  • Shaul, David Leedom, 1989 "Teguima (Opata) phonology", Southwestern Journal of Linguistics 9:150-162. ...
  • Shaul, David Leedom, 1990, "Teguima (Opata) Inflectional Morphology", International Journal of American Linguistics, Vol. 56, No. 4 (Oct., 1990), pp. 561–573
  • Smith, Buckingham
  • Grammatical Sketch of the Heve Language at Project Gutenberg


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