Sierra Otomi a.k.a. Highland Otomi (Otomi de la Sierra) is a dialect cluster of the Otomi language spoken in Mexico by ca. 70,000 people in the highlands of Eastern Hidalgo, Western Veracruz and Northern Puebla. The speakers themselves call the language Yųhų (Eastern Highland) or Ñųhų (Texcatepec and Tenango).[2] Lastra 2001 classifies it as an Eastern Otomi language together with Ixtenco Otomi, Tilapa Otomi, and Acazulco Otomi. The three varieties of Sierra Otomi—Eastern Highland, Texcatepec, and Tenango—are above 70% lexically similar; the Eastern Highland dialects are above 80%, and will be considered here.
Municipalities with significant Sierra Otomi populations include the following (Dow 2005:236). Many of these municipalities also have Tepehua, Totonac, and Nahuatl speakers.
The phonemic inventory given below is based on the particular phonology of the Otomi de la Sierra dialect as documented by Voigtlander and Echegoyen (1985), phonemic inventories of other dialects vary slightly from that of Otomi de la Sierra.
Dow, James W. 2005.『The Sierra Ñähñu (Otomí).』In Sandstrom, Alan R., and Enrique Hugo García Valencia. 2005. Native peoples of the Gulf Coast of Mexico. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
Voigtlander, Katherine; Artemisa Echegoyen (1985). Luces Contemporaneas del Otomi: Grámatica del Otomi de la Sierra (in Spanish). Mexico, D.F.: Instituto Lingüístico de Verano.
Lastra, Yolanda (2006). Los Otomies - Su lengua y su historia (in Spanish). Universidad Nacional Autonoma de México, Instituto de investigaciones Antropológicas. ISBN9789703233885.
Lastra, Yolanda (2001). Unidad y diversidad de la lengua. Relatos otomíes (in Spanish). Universidad Nacional Autonoma de México, Instituto de investigaciones Antropológicas. ISBN968-36-9509-4.
