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Tepehuán language

Tepehuán
O'otham
Native to	Mexico
Region	Chihuahua, Durango
Ethnicity	Tepehuán
Native speakers	55,000 (2020 census)[1]
Language family	Uto-Aztecan Southern Uto-Aztecan Tepiman Tepehuán
Dialects	Tepecano
Language codes
ISO 639-3	Variously: ntp – Northern Tepehuán stp – Southeastern Tepehuán tla – Southwestern Tepehuán tep – Tepecano
Glottolog	tepe1281
Northern Tepehuán is classified as Critically Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger
Southwestern Tepehuán is classified as Vulnerable by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger

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

Northern Tepehuán is spoken by about 10,000 people (2020 census)^[1] in several settlements in Guadalupe y Calvo and Guachochi, Chihuahua, as well as in the north of Durango.^[2]

Southern Tepehuán is spoken by about 45,000 people,^[1] about equally divided into:

• Southeastern Tepehuán in Mezquital Municipio in the state of Durango.
• Southwestern Tepehuán in southwestern Durango.

Southern Tepehuán coexists with the Mexicanero language; there is some intermarriage between the two ethnic groups, and a number of speakers are trilingual in Mexicanero, Tepehuán and Spanish.

Tepehuán-language programming is carried by the CDI's radio stations XEJMN-AM, broadcasting from Jesús María, Nayarit, and XETAR, based in Guachochi, Chihuahua.

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

The following is representative of the Northern dialect of Tepehuan.^[3]

Nasal consonants /n, ɲ/ become [ŋ] when preceding a velar consonant.

The following is representative of the Southeastern dialect of Tepehuan.^[4]

/v/ is sometimes realized as [f] in word-final position. /l/ appears only in loanwords from Spanish.

Northern Tepehuan:

Southeastern Tepehuan:

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