Uto-Aztecan languages
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The Uto-Aztecan (also Uto-Aztekan) is a Native American language family. It is one of the largest (both in geographical extension and number of languages) and most well-established linguistic families of the Americas. The Uto-Aztecan languages are found from the Great Basin of the western United States (Oregon, Idaho, Utah, California, Nevada, Arizona), through Mexico. Utah is named after the indigenous Uto-Aztecan Ute people. Classical Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs, and its modern relatives are part of the Uto-Aztecan family.
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[edit] History of classification
The similarities between the Uto-Aztecan languages were noted already in 1859 by J.C.E. Buschmann who however failed to recognize the genetic affiliation between the Aztecan branch and the Northern Uto-Aztecan languages ascribing the similarities between the two groups to Aztec contact influence. Brinton included the Aztecan languages in 1891 and coined the term Uto-Aztecan. The idea remained controversial for awhile and was rejected in Powell's classification also from 1891.
The Uto-Aztecan family was established through systematic work by linguists such as Alfred L. Kroeber who established the relations between the Shoshonean languages and especially Edward Sapir who proved the unity between the Northern and Southern branches of Uto-Aztecan to everyones satisfaction in a series of groundbreaking applications of the comparative method to unwritten native american languages.
Although established as a family, the subgrouping of the Uto-Aztecan language family remains controversial at present only eight groupings are considered unproblematic by a wide consensus of linguists: the Numic, Takic, Tübatulabal, Hopi, Pimic, Taracahitic and Aztecan branches. The higher level relations between these as well as the further subdivision of the single branches remains issues of controversy. Especially the Sonoran branch (including Pimic, Taracahitic and Corachol) and Shoshonean (including Numic and Takic) remains unaccepted by some scholars.
Uto-Aztecan has been included in some long range proposals of linguistic super-families. A hypothesis proposed by Benjamin Lee Whorf relating Uto-Aztecan to Kiowa-Tanoan, in an Aztec-Tanoan family is often assumed to be true, but Lyle Campbell (1997) considers this hypothesis as improbable and resting on shaky ground. Joseph Greenberg included Uto-Aztecan in his widely criticized and highly controversial Amerind macro-family along with all native american linguistic except for Na-Dene.
[edit] The Geographical extension of the Uto-Aztecan languages and the Uto-Aztecan Homeland
The proto-Uto-Aztecan homeland is generally thought to have been somewhere in the south western USA - Arizona, New Mexico or northern Mexico where the first split between Northern and Southern branches took place. The homeland of the Numic branch has been placed near Death Valley, California and the Southern Uto-Aztecan languages are thought to have spread out from a place in north-western Mexico in southern Sonora or northern Sinaloa.
[edit] The proto-Uto-Aztecan language
[edit] Vowels
Proto-Uto-Aztecan is reconstructed as having an unusual five-vowel system: *i *a *u *o *ɨ. Langacker (1970) demonstrated that the fifth vowel should be reconstructed as *ɨ as opposed to *e—there had been a long-running dispute over the proper reconstruction (Campbell 1997:136).
[edit] Consonants
| Bilabial | Coronal | Palatal | Velar | Labialized velar | Glottal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stop | *p | *t | *k | *kʷ | *ʔ | |
| Affricate | *c | |||||
| Fricative | *s | *h | ||||
| Nasal | *m | *n | *ŋ | |||
| Rhotic | *r | |||||
| Semivowel | *y | *w |
Note that in Americanist phonetic notation, <c> and <y> are equivalent to IPA /t͡s/ and /j/, respectively. *n and *ŋ may have actually been *l and *n, respectively.
[edit] Genealogy of Uto-Aztecan languages
Uto-Aztecan is divided into two main branches: Northern (based in the USA) and Southern Uto-Aztecan (based in Mexico). Northern Uto-Aztecan is further divided into the Numic and Takic branches and the Hopi and Tübatulabal languages which are derived directly from the Proto-Northern node. Southern Uto-Aztecan is divided into the Corachol-Aztecan branch (comprised of the Aztecan/Nahuan and Coracholan subbranches), the Piman branch and the Taracahitic branch. The groupings presented here are based on the authoritative classification given in Lyle Campbells "American Indian Languages".
[edit] Northern Uto-Aztecan
Numic (a.k.a. Plateau)
- Western Numic
- Central Numic
- Southern Numic
Takic (a.k.a. Southern California Shoshsone)
- Cupan
- Serran
[edit] Southern Uto-Aztecan
Piman (a.k.a. Pimic, Tepiman)
- O'odham (a.k.a. Pima language, Papago language)
- Pima Bajo (a.k.a. Mountain Pima)
- Tepehuán languages
- Tepecano †
Taracahitic
Aztecan (a.k.a. Nahuatl, Nahuan)
- Pochutec (a.k.a. Pochutla)†
- General Aztec
- Nahuatl
- Central Nahuatl
- Peripheral Nahuatl
- Western Periphery
- West Coast
- Durango/Nayarit Nahual
- Eastern Periphery
- Isthmus-Mecayapan Nahuatl
- Pipil language(aka. Nawat)
- La Huasteca nahuatl
- Western Periphery
- Nahuatl
Corachol (a.k.a Coran)
- Huichol
- Cora
- † extinct
The term Aztecoidan refers to Alden Mason's sub-grouping of the Aztecan and Corachol branches.
[edit] References
- Campbell, Lyle. (1979). Middle American languages. In L. Campbell & M. Mithun (Eds.), The languages of native America: Historical and comparative assessment (pp. 902-1000). Austin: University of Texas Press.
- Campbell, Lyle (1997) American Indian Languages, The Historical Linguistics of Native America, Oxford Studies in Anthropological Linguistics, Oxford University Press
- Miller, Wick. (1983). Uto-Aztecan languages. In W. C. Sturtevant (Ed.), Handbook of North American Indians (Vol. 10, pp. 113-124). Washington, D. C.: Smithsonian Institution.
- Mithun, Marianne. (1999). The languages of Native North America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-23228-7 (hbk); ISBN 0-521-29875-X.
- Steele, Susan. (1979). Uto-Aztecan: An assessment for historical and comparative linguistics. In L. Campbell & M. Mithun (Eds.), The languages of native America: Historical and comparative assessment (pp. 444-544). Austin: University of Texas Press.
- Súarez, Jorge. (1983). The Mesoamerican Indian languages. Cambridge University Press.
[edit] External links
ca:Uto-asteca de:Uto-aztekische Sprachen es:Lenguas uto-aztecas fr:Langues uto-aztèques hr:Uto-Aztecan nl:Uto-Azteekse talen pl:Języki uto-azteckie zh:猶他-阿茲特克語系
