Tepehuán language

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Tepehuán, Tepehuáno, Tepecano O'otham
Spoken in:	Mexico
Region:	Chihuahua, Durango
Total speakers:	~25,000 (All varieties)
Language family:	Uto-Aztecan  Southern Uto-Aztecan   Sonoran    Tepiman     Tepehuán, Tepehuáno, Tepecano
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	none
ISO 639-2:	nai
ISO 639-3:	stp
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

Tepehuán is the name of three closely related languages of the Piman branch of the Uto-Aztecan linguistic family, both spoken in northern Mexico. The language is called O'otham by its speakers.

[edit] Northern Tepehúan

Northern Tepehúan is spoken by 8,000 Tepehuáno people (1990 census) in the south of the state of Chihuahua.

[edit] Southern Tepehúan

Southern Tepehúan is divided into the southeastern and southwestern group. Southeastern Tepehúan is spoken by 9,937 people (2000 WCD) in the Mezquital Municipio of the state of Durango. Southern Tepehúan 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 (2000 WCD) people in Southwestern Durango.

[edit] 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.