Southern Tiwa language

The Southern Tiwa language is a Tanoan language spoken at Sandia Pueblo and Isleta Pueblo in New Mexico and Ysleta del Sur in Texas.

Southern Tiwa
Native to	United States
Region	New Mexico
Ethnicity	Tiwa
Native speakers	1,600, mostly older adults (2007)[1]
Language family	Kiowa-Tanoan Tanoan Tiwa Southern Tiwa
Language codes
ISO 639-3	tix
Glottolog	sout2961
ELP	Southern Tiwa
Linguasphere	64-CAA-b
Southern Tiwa
Southern Tiwa is classified as Definitely Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger

Classification

Southern Tiwa belongs to the Tiwa sub-grouping of the Kiowa–Tanoan language family. It is closely related to the more northernly Picurís (spoken at Picuris Pueblo) and Taos (spoken at Taos Pueblo). Trager stated that Southern Tiwa speakers were able to understand Taos and Picurís, although Taos and Picurís speakers could not understand Southern Tiwa very easily. Harrington (1910) observed that an Isleta person (Southern Tiwa) communicated in "Mexican jargon" with Taos speakers as Taos and Southern Tiwa were not mutually intelligible.

Dialects

Southern Tiwa had three dialectal variants

1. Sandía
2. Isleta
3. Ysleta del Sur (Tigua)

Trager reported that Sandía and Isleta were very similar and mutually intelligible.

In August 2015, it was announced that the Tiwa language would be taught to children at Isleta Elementary School in Pueblo of Isleta, as a part of the school's transfer from federal to tribal control.^[2]

Sound system

Southern Tiwa has 29 consonants:

Consonants

		Labial	Dental	Alveolar		Palatal	Velar		Glottal
				plain	lateral		plain	lab.	plain	lab.
Plosive	voiced	b	d				ɡ
	voiceless	p	t				k	kʷ	ʔ
	aspirated	pʰ	tʰ				kʰ
	glottalized	pʼ	tʼ				kʼ	kʼʷ
Affricate	voiceless					tʃ
	glottalized					tʃʼ
Fricative		f		s	ɬ	ʃ			h	hʷ
Rhotic				ɾ
Nasal		m	n
Approximant		w			l	j

Stops /pʰ, tʰ, kʰ/ and /b, d/ may be fricated in different positions as [f, θ, x] and [β, ð] respectively.

/ɾ/ can also be heard as a trill [r] and a retroflex [ɽ].

Southern Tiwa has five vowels that have both an oral and nasal contrast.

Vowels

	Front		Central		Back
	oral	nasal	oral	nasal	oral	nasal
High	i	ĩ	ɨ	ɨ̃	u	ũ
Mid	ɛ	ɛ̃
Low					ɑ	ɑ̃

Sounds /i, ɨ, u, ɑ/ may also be heard as [ɪ, ɯ, ʊ, a].

Southern Tiwa has three tones: high, mid, and low.