Tepehuán language
Tepehuán 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 8,000 Tepehuán people in the south of the state of Chihuahua and north of Durango.Southern Tepehuán is divided into the southeastern and southwestern group.
- Southeastern Tepehuán is spoken by 9,937 people in Mezquital Municipio in the state of Durango. Southern Tepehuán coexists with the Mexicanero Nahuatl language, there is some intermarriage between the two ethnic groups, and a number of speakers are trilingual in Mexicanero, Tepehuán and Spanish.
- Southwestern Tepehuán is spoken by around 8,187 people in Southwestern Durango.
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.Vowels
Consonants
Nasal consonants /n, ɲ/ become /ŋ/ when preceding a velar consonant.Southern Tepehuan
The following is representative of the Southeastern dialect of Tepehuan.Vowels
Consonants
A /v/ sound may change to /f/ when occurring at word-final. /l/ only appears from Spanish loanwords.Sample Tepehuan Text
Northern Tepehuan:
Southeastern Tepehuan:
