Oʼodham or Papago-Pima is a Uto-Aztecan language of southern Arizona and northern Sonora, Mexico, where the Tohono Oʼodham and Akimel Oʼodham reside. In 2000 there were estimated to be approximately 9,750 speakers in the United States and Mexico combined, although there may be more due to underreporting. It is the 10th most-spoken indigenous language in the United States, the 3rd most-spoken indigenous language in Arizona after Western Apache and Navajo. It is the third-most spoken language in Pinal County, Arizona, and the fourth-most spoken language in Pima County, Arizona. Approximately 8% of Oʼodham speakers in the US speak English "not well" or "not at all", according to results of the 2000 Census. Approximately 13% of Oʼodham speakers in the US were between the ages of 5 and 17, and among the younger Oʼodham speakers, approximately 4% were reported as speaking English "not well" or "not at all". Native names for the language, depending on the dialect and orthography, include Oʼodham ha-ñeʼokĭ, Oʼottham ha-neoki, and Oʼodham ñiok.
Due to the paucity of data on the linguistic varieties of the Hia C-eḍ Oʼodham, this section currently focuses on the Tohono Oʼodham and Akimel Oʼodham dialects only. The greatest lexical and grammatical dialectal differences are between the Tohono Oʼodham and the Akimel Oʼodham dialect groupings. Some examples:
There are other major dialectal differences between northern and southern dialects, for example:
Early Oʼodham
Southern
Northern
English
*ʼa꞉phi꞉m
ʼa꞉ham
ʼa꞉pim
you
*cu꞉khug
cu꞉hug
cu꞉kug
flesh
*ʼe꞉kheg
ʼe꞉heg
ʼe꞉keg
to be shaded
*ʼu꞉pham
ʼu꞉hum
ʼu꞉pam
back
The Cukuḍ Kuk dialect has null in certain positions where other Tohono Oʼodham dialects have a bilabial:
Other TO dialects
Chukuḍ Kuk
English
jiwia, jiwa
jiia
to arrive
ʼuʼuwhig
ʼuʼuhig
bird
wabṣ
haṣ
only
wabṣaba, ṣaba
haṣaba
but
Morphology
Oʼodham is an agglutinative language, where words use suffix complexes for a variety of purposes with several morphemes strung together.
Phonology
For clarity, note that the terms Tohono Oʼodham and Papagorefer to the same language; likewise for Akimel Oʼodham and Pima. Oʼodham phonology has a typical Uto-Aztecan inventory distinguishing 21 consonants and 5 vowels.
Most vowels distinguish two degrees of length: long and short, and some vowels also show extra-short duration.
ṣe꞉l "Seri"
ṣel "permission"
ʼa꞉pi "you"
da꞉pĭ "I don't know", "who knows?"
Papago is pronounced in Pima. Additionally, in common with many northern Uto-Aztecan languages, vowels and nasals at end of words are devoiced. Also, a short schwa sound, either voiced or unvoiced depending on position, is often interpolated between consonants and at the ends of words.
Allophony and distribution
Extra short is realized as voiceless and devoices preceding obstruents: cuwĭ → "jackrabbit".
is a fricative before unrounded vowels: wisilo.
appears before and in Spanish loanwords, but native words do not have nasal assimilation: to꞉nk "hill", namk "meet", ca꞉ŋgo "monkey".,, and rarely occur initially in native words, and does not occur before.
and are largely in complementary distribution, appearing before high vowels, appearing before low vowels : ñeʼe "sing". They contrast finally, though Saxton analyzes these as and, respectively, and final as in ʼa꞉ñi as. However, there are several Spanish loanwords where occurs: nu꞉milo "number". Similarly, for the most part and appear before low vowels while and before high vowels, but there are exceptions to both, often in Spanish loanwords: tiki꞉la "wine", TO weco / AO veco "under".
Orthography
There are two orthographies commonly used for the Oʼodham language: Alvarez–Hale and Saxton. The Alvarez–Hale orthography is officially used by the Tohono Oʼodham Nation and the Salt River Pima–Maricopa Indian Community, and is used in this article, but the Saxton orthography is also common and is official in the Gila River Indian Community. It is relatively easy to convert between the two, the differences between them being largely no more than different graphemes for the same phoneme, but there are distinctions made by Alvarez–Hale not made by Saxton.
The Saxton orthography does not mark word-initial or extra-short vowels. Final generally corresponds to Hale–Alvarez and final to Hale–Alvarez :
Hale–Alvarez to꞉bĭ vs. Saxton tohbi "cottontail rabbit"
Hale–Alvarez ʼa꞉pi vs. Saxton ahpih "I"
Disputed spellings
There is some disagreement among speakers as to whether the spelling of words should be only phonetic or whether etymological principles should be considered as well. For instance, oamajda vs. wuamajda derives from oam. Some believe it should be spelled phonetically as wuamajda, reflecting the fact that it begins with, while others think its spelling should reflect the fact that it is derived from oam.
Grammar
Syntax
Oʼodham has relatively free word order within clauses; for example, all of the following sentences mean "the boy brands the pig":
ceoj ʼo g ko꞉jĭ ceposid
ko꞉jĭ ʼo g ceoj ceposid
ceoj ʼo ceposid g ko꞉jĭ
ko꞉jĭ ʼo ceposid g ceoj
ceposid ʼo g ceoj g ko꞉jĭ
ceposid ʼo g ko꞉jĭ g ceoj
In principle, these could also mean "the pig brands the boy", but such an interpretation would require an unusual context. Despite the general freedom of sentence word order, Oʼodham is fairly strictly verb-second in its placement of the auxiliary verb :
cipkan ʼañ "I am working"
but pi ʼañ cipkan "I am not working", not **pi cipkan ʼañ
Verbs
Verbs are inflected for aspect, tense, and number. Number agreement displays absolutive behavior: verbs agree with the number of the subject in intransitive sentences, but with that of the object in transitive sentences:
ceoj ʼo cipkan "the boy is working"
cecoj ʼo cicpkan "the boys are working"
ceoj ʼo g ko꞉ji ceposid "the boy is branding the pig"
cecoj ʼo g ko꞉ji ceposid "the boys are branding the pig"
ceoj ʼo g kokji ha-cecposid "the boy is branding the pigs"
The main verb agrees with the object for person, but the auxiliary agrees with the subject: ʼa꞉ñi ʼañ g kokji ha-cecposid "I am branding the pigs".
Nouns
Three numbers are distinguished in nouns: singular, plural, and distributive, though not all nouns have distinct forms for each. Most distinct plurals are formed by reduplication and often vowel loss plus other occasional morphophonemic changes, and distributives are formed from these by gemination of the reduplicated consonant:
gogs "dog", gogogs "dogs", goggogs "dogs "
ma꞉gina "car", mamgina "cars", mammagina "cars "
mi꞉stol "cat", mimstol "cats"
Adjectives
Oʼodham adjectives can act both attributively modifying nouns and predicatively as verbs, with no change in form.
ʼi꞉da ṣu꞉dagĭ ʼo s-he꞉pid "This water is cold"
ʼs-he꞉pid ṣu꞉agĭ ʼañ hohoʼid "I like cold water"
Sample text
The following is an excerpt from Oʼodham Piipaash Language Program: Taḏai. It exemplifies the Salt River dialect. In Saxton orthography:
