Opata language

Ópata (also Tegüima, Teguima, Tehuima, Tehui, Eudeve, Eudeva, Heve, Dohema, Jova, Joval, Tonichi, Sonori and Ure; Opata: Teguima) is either of two closely related Uto-Aztecan languages, Teguima and 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.

Buckingham Smith's translated account of the Heve Language

Ópata
Teguima
Vocabulary of the Opata language of unknown date and origin, part of the collection of the Cervantine Library in Monterrey
Native to	Mexico, U.S.
Region	Sonora, Arizona
Ethnicity	Opata
Extinct	1930s[1]
Revival	21st century
Language family	Uto-Aztecan Southern Uto-Aztecan Opatan Ópata
Dialects	Teguima/Opata Eudeve
Language codes
ISO 639-3	Either: opt – Opata eud – Eudeve
Linguist List	opt Eudeve
	0vv Jova
Glottolog	opat1247
ELP	Ópata
Opatan

Buckingham Smith translated Grammatical Sketch of the Heve Language from an unpublished Spanish manuscript and it was published in 1861. 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

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

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

Consonants

		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]

Vowels

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

Morphology

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