Hopi language

Hopi is a Uto-Aztecan language spoken by the Hopi people (a Pueblo group) of northeastern Arizona, USA, although today some Hopi are monolingual English speakers.

The use of the language gradually declined over the course of the 20th century. In 1990, it was estimated that over 5,000 other people could speak Hopi natively (approximately 70% of the population), at least 40 of them monolingual.

Despite the fact that relatively few people can speak Hopi (compared to languages like English or Chinese), it is very unlikely that it will face the danger of extinction in the near future, as the language is making a comeback. Many Hopi children are being raised in the language, a comprehensive has been published, and a group called the Hopi Literacy Project has focused its attention on promoting the language. The language was used in the film Koyaanisqatsi and its sequels.

Language variation

Benjamin Whorf identifies four varieties (dialects) of Hopi:

* "First Mesa" (or Whorf's "Polacca")
* "Mishongnovi" (or Whorf's "Toreva")
* "Shipaulovi" (or Whorf's "Sipaulovi")
* "Third Mesa" (or Whorf's "Oraibi")

First Mesa is spoken on First Mesa (which is the eastern mesa) in Polacca village in Walpi pueblo and in other neighboring communities. [Polacca is actually at the base of First Mesa unlike the other villages which are on the top of the mesa. Polacca is shared by Hopi and Tewa.] There is also a community of Arizona Tewa on First Mesa, the members of which speak Tewa in addition to a variety of Hopi and English and Spanish. Mishongnovi is spoken on Second Mesa (which is the central mesa) in Mishongnovi village. Mishongnovi has few speakers compared to First and Third Mesa dialects. Shipaulovi is also spoken on Second Mesa in Shipaulovi village, which is close to Mishongnovi village. Whorf notes that other villages on Second Mesa are of unknown dialectal affiliation. An introductory textbook (Kalectaca 1978) has been written by a Shongopavi speaker. Shongopavi is another village on the Second Mesa, but its relation to other dialects has not been analyzed. The Third Mesa dialect is spoken on Third Mesa (which is the western mesa) at Oraibi village and in neighboring communities as well as in Moenkopi village which is lies off Third Mesa and at a distance west of it.

The most thorough analysisVerify source|date=August 2008 of the Hopi language is Benjamin Whorf's study of Mishongnovi Hopi, which was based primarily on a single off-reservation informant but later checked by other reservation speakers. In his study, he states that Mishongnovi is the most archaic and phonemically complex of the dialects. However, Third Mesa also preserves some older relics that have been lost in Mishongnovi.

There are also differences along an age variable. Malotki (1983) reports that Third Mesa speakers of younger generations have lost the labialization feature of "w" on the different subject subordinator "-qw" after the vowels "a", "i", "e", "u" where they have "-q" instead. This loss of labialization is also found on the simultaneity marker where younger speakers have "-kyang" against older "-kyangw". In words with "kw" or "ngw" in the syllable coda, the labialization is also lost: "naksu" (younger) vs. "nakwsu" (older) "he started out", "hikni" (younger) vs. "kikwni" (older) "he will drink", "tuusungti" (younger) vs. "tuusungwti" (older) "he got frozen".

Language contact

Hopi is part of the Pueblo linguistic area (a Sprachbund) along with the Tanoan members of the Kiowa-Tanoan family, the Keresan languages, Zuni, and Navajo.

Hopi speakers have traditionally used Navajo as the language of communication between Zunis and Navajos. Hopi speakers have also been in close contact with a Kiowa-Tanoan language for over 300 years since the Arizona Tewa, who speak Tewa, moved from the Galisteo Basin following the Pueblo Revolt of 1696 to reside on First Mesa. The Arizona Tewa have traditionally acted as translators for the Hopi speaking Tewa, Hopi, Navajo, Spanish, and English.

Hopi was in very cursory contact with Spanish with their explorations starting in 1540. In 1629 a small group of Franciscan missionaries started arriving in Hopi territory, building a church the following year. They remained there until 1680 when the great Pueblo Revolt occurred and the Hopis expelled the Spanish from the region. Both the practices of the Spanish when there and the stories of negative experiences of Puebloan refugees from the Rio Grande region contributed to a Hopi attitude where acculturation was resisted or rejected.

A number of studies (Dockstader 1955, Hymes 1956, Kennard 1963, Hill 1997) have focused on loanwords (words borrowed into Hopi from other languages).

Caretaker speech

* Caretaker speech

Titiev (1946)

Phonology

Vowels

There are six basic vowels [Four Hopi vowels are pronounced similarly to English vowels while two — "ö" and "u" — are quite different.] in Hopi in a skewed system.

:

As seen above, the Mishongnovi dialect has a larger number of consonants when compared with the Third Mesa dialect. The additional consonants are a series of preaspirated stops and a series of voiceless sonorants.

The voiced labial fricative "v" varies (idiolectal free variation) between labiodental and bilabial IPA| [v ~ β] . Before a consonant (word-medially) and at the end of words, it is not voiced although its realization is dependant upon dialect. Third Mesa speakers have a voiceless bilabial stop IPA| [p] . Mishongnovi speakers have a voiceless labial IPA| [f] syllable-finally.

The alveolar sibilants "ts" and "s" are apical. In some Third Mesa speakers, they are palatalized to IPA| [tsʲ] and IPA| [sʲ] which sound similar to laminal IPA| [tʃ] and IPA| [ʃ] . In Mishongnovi, "ts" is palatalized when at the beginning of syllables and non-palatalized elsewhere.

Hopi has a number of stop contrasts at the velar place of articulation that occur before the low vowel "a". Elsewhere, the contrasts are neutralized. The velar in environments of neutralization is called "neutral" "k" by Jeanne (1978). Before the front vowels "i" and "e", it is palatalized with a fronted articulation and following palatal glide IPA| [j] . Thus, "ki" and "ke" are respectively IPA| [cji] and IPA| [cjɛ] . Before the back vowels "u" and "o", "k" is a typically velar: "ku" as IPA| [kɨ] , "ko" IPA| [ko] . Before the mid vowels "ö", "k" has a backed articulation: "kö" as IPA| [ḵø] . Before "a", however, the fronted velar with following palatal glide and the backed velar contrast. Complicating this pattern are words borrowed from Spanish that have a velar followed by a low vowel. With the addition of these loanwords, a third velar contrast has been introduced into Hopi. Words with this borrowed velar are "neutral" and typically velar in articulation. Thus, there is a distinction between "kya" IPA| [cja] and "qa" IPA| [ḵa] in native words both of which are distinct from "ka" IPA| [ka] in loanwords. [The precise phonetics of the these "k" consonants is unclear due to vague descriptions in the literature. Voegelin (1956) suggests that the fronted "ky" is distinguished more by presence of the palatal glide than by the difference in the articulatory position of the dorsal contact. He also mentions that the backed "q" is "not-so-far-back". This suggests that "q" is post-velar and not quite uvular. Malotki (1983) describes the "ky" and (Spanish) "k" as palatal and "q" (and "qw") as velar. Whorf (1946) describes "k" (= "ky") as palatal with palatal glide before some vowels, Spanish "ḳ" as "ordinary k", and "q" as velar. Whorf's letter to Clyde Kluckhohn in Kluckhohn & MacLeish (1955) describes "q" as being like Arabic or Nootka "q", which suggests a uvular articulation.] Whorf's phonemicization of Mishongnovi posits "k" occurring before "i", "u", "e", "o", "a" (with a fronted allophone before "i", "e", "a"); backed "q" occurring before "e", "ö", "a"; and borrowed "ḳ" before "a" in Spanish loans.

Similarly to "ky" and "q", Hopi has a fronted dorsal nasal "ngy" and a backed dorsal nasal "ng". The fronted nasal is palatal IPA| [ɲ] . The backed nasal is described as velar IPA|ŋ in Third Mesa speech and thus forms a "neutral" series with "neutral" "k". In Mishongnovi speech, Whorf describes the backed nasal as having the more rear articulation of "q": IPA| [ŋ̱] .

The retroflex "r" varies between a retroflex fricative IPA| [ʐ] and a flap IPA| [ɾ] although the fricative realization is much more common. In Mishongnovi, "r" is only weakly fricative. In syllable coda position, "r" is devoiced to a voiceless fricative IPA| [ʂ] .

The preaspirated stops IPA|/ʰp, ʰt, ʰts, ʰkʷ, ʰk, ʰq/ and voiceless sonorants IPA|/m̥, n̥, ŋ̱̊, l̥, ẙ, w̥/ of Mishongnovi only occur in syllable coda position. However, they do contrast with plain stops and voiced sonorants in this position. Whorf notes that the preaspirated stops also contrast with a similar sequence of IPA|/h/ + stop.

Orthography

Nouns are marked as objective by either the suffixes "-t" for simple nouns or "-y" for dual nouns (those referring to exactly two individuals), possessed nouns or plural nouns.

Some examples are shown below:

Verbs are also marked by suffixes but these are not used in a regular pattern. For example the suffixes "-lawu" and "-ta" are both used to make a simple verb into a durative one (implying the action is ongoing and not yet complete) but it is hard to predict which suffix applies to which verbs. Second language learners of Hopi usually simply learn this by rote.

There are some gender specific terms in Hopi:

Morphological processes

*Elision - when the stress-shift would cause a clipped vowel not in the first syllable to have a low stress, that vowel is elided.

*Lenition - initial "p" becomes "v" when it becomes internal to a word or when the word is preceded by another word used as an adjectival or an incorporated verbal modifier.

* Reduplication - stem-initial CV, stem-final CV and word-final V are reduplicated.

yntax

Word Order

The simplest type of sentence in Hopi consists of simply a subject and a predicate, such as 'Maana wuupa' (the girl is tall).

However, many Hopi sentences also include an object which is inserted between the subject and the verb. Thus, Hopi is a Subject-Object-Verb language.

Case Marking

Nouns are marked as nominative/objective as shown above.

Pronouns are also marked as either nominative or objective. For example, the singular subject pronoun you in Hopi is "um" and the form for the singular object pronoun is "ung".

Demonstratives are marked by case in Hopi, shown here first in their subjective form and then in their objective one:

"iˈ"/"it" - this

"pam"/"put" - that (closer object)

"miˈ"/"mit" - that (further object)

"ima"/"imuy" - these

"puma"/"pumuy" - those (closer object)

"mima"/"mimuy" - those (further object)

Writing System

Hopi is written using the Latin alphabet. The vowel letters correspond to the phonemes of Hopi as follows: a IPA|/ɔ/, e IPA|/ɛ/, i IPA|/ɪ/, o IPA|/o/, u IPA|/ɨ/ and ö IPA|/ø/). Long vowels are written double: aa, ee, ii, oo, uu, öö.

Consonants are: ’ IPA|/ʔ/, h IPA|/h/, k IPA|/k/, ky IPA|/kʲ/, kw IPA|/kʷ/, l IPA|/l/, m IPA|/m/, n IPA|/n/, ng IPA|/ŋ/, ngw IPA|/ŋʷ/, ngy IPA|/ŋʲ/, p IPA|/p/, q IPA|/q/, qw IPA|/qʷ/, r IPA|/ʒ/, s IPA|/s/, t IPA|/t/, ts IPA|z/, v IPA|/β/, w IPA|/w/, y IPA|/j/.

Falling accent is marked with a grave `: "tsiròot" 'birds'.

To distinguish certain consonants written as digraphs from similar looking phonemes meeting across syllable boundaries, a fullstop is used: "kwaahu" 'eagle' but "kuk.wuwàaqe" 'to follow tracks'.

Metaphysics

Benjamin Lee Whorf, a well-known linguist, used the Hopi language to exemplify his argument that one's world-view is affected by one's language and vice-versa. Among Whorf's most astounding claims was that Hopi had “no words, grammatical forms, construction or expressions that refer directly to what we call “time”.” [Carroll, John B. (ed.)(1956). "Language Thought and Reality: Selected Writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf". MIT Press, Boston, Massachusetts. [http://worldcat.org/isbn/0262730065 ISBN 0262730065 9780262730068] ] However, other linguists and philosophers are skeptical of Whorf's argument, and his findings on Hopi have been disputed or rejected. [cite web |url=http://www.native-languages.org/iaq7.htm#12 |title=Setting the Record Straight About Native Languages: Language Complexity |publisher=Native Languages of the Americas |accessdate=2007-05-01]

See also

* Qatsi trilogy

Notes

Bibliography

* Brew, J. O. (1979). Hopi prehistory and history to 1850. In A. Ortiz (Ed.), "Handbook of North American Indians: Southwest" (Vol. 9, pp. 514-523). Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution.
* Connelly, John C. (1979). Hopi social organization. In A. Ortiz (Ed.), "Handbook of North American Indians: Southwest" (Vol. 9, pp. 539-553). Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution.
* Dockstader, Frederick J. (1955). Spanish loanwords in Hopi: A preliminary checklist. "International Journal of American Linguistics", "21" (2), 157-159.
* Harrington, John P. (1913). [Linguistic fieldnotes based on work with a speaker of Oraibi Hopi] . (National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution).
* Hill, Kenneth C. (1997). Spanish loanwords in Hopi. In J. H. Hill, P. J. Mistry, & L. Campbell (Eds.), "The life of language: Papers in linguistics in honor of William Bright" (pp. 19-24). Trends in linguistics: Studies and monographs (No. 108). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
* Hopi Dictionary Project (University of Arizona Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology). (1998). "Hopi dictionary: Hopìikwa Lavàytutuveni: A Hopi-English dictionary of the Third Mesa dialect with an English-Hopi finder list and a sketch of Hopi grammar". Tucson, Arizona: University of Arizona Press. ISBN 0-8165-1789-4
* Hymes, D. H. (1956). The supposed Spanish loanword in Hopi for 'jaybird'. "International Journal of American Linguistics", "22" (2), 186-187.
* Jeanne, LaVerne Masayesva. (1978). "Aspects of Hopi grammar". (Doctoral dissertation, MIT). Online: [http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/16325 hdl.handle.net/1721.1/16325]
* Jeanne, LaVerne Masayesva. (1982). Some phonological rules of Hopi. "International Journal of American Linguistics", "48" (3), 245-270. Online: [http://www.jstor.org/pss/1264788 www.jstor.org/pss/1264788]
* Kalectaca, Milo. (1978). "Lessons in Hopi". Tucson, Arizona: University of Arizona Press.
* Kennard, Edward A. (1963). Linguistic acculturation in Hopi. "International Journal of American Linguistics", "29" (1), 36-41.
* Kennard, Edward A.; & Albert Yava. (1999). "Field Mouse Goes to War: Tusan Homichi Tuwvöta". Palmer Lake, Colorado: Filter Press.
* Kluckhohn, Clyde; & MacLeish, Kenneth. (1955). Moencopi variations from Whorf's Second Mesa Hopi. "International Journal of American Linguistics", "21" (2), 150-156. Online: [http://www.jstor.org/pss/1263941 www.jstor.org/pss/1263941]
* Manaster-Ramer. (1986). Genesis of Hopi tones. "International Journal of American Linguistics", "52" (2), 154-160. Online: [http://www.jstor.org/pss/1265374 www.jstor.org/pss/1265374]
* Malotki, Ekkehart. (1983). "Hopi time: A linguistic analysis of the temporal concepts in the Hopi language". Trends in linguistics: Studies and monographs (No. 20). Mouton De Gruyter.
* Seqaquaptewa, E. (1994). "Iisaw niqw tsaayantotaqam tsiròot". Santa Fe, NM: Clear Light.
* Seqaquaptewa, E. (1994). "Iisaw niqw yöngösonhoya". Santa Fe, NM: Clear Light.
* Stephen, Alexander M. (1936). "Hopi journal of Alexander M. Stephen". Parsons, E. C. (Ed.). Columbia University contributions to anthropology (No. 23). New York: Columbia University Press.
* Titiev, Mischa. (1946). Suggestions for the further study of Hopi. "International Journal of American Linguistics", "12" (2), 89-91.
* Voegelin, C. F. (1956). Phonemicizing for dialect study: With reference to Hopi. "Language", "32" (1), 116-135. Online: [http://www.jstor.org/pss/410660 www.jstor.org/pss/410660]
* Whorf, Benjamin Lee. (1936). [Notes on Hopi grammar and pronunciation; Mishongnovi forms] . In E. C. Parsons (Ed.), "Hopi journal of Alexander M. Stephen" (Vol. 2, pp. 1198-1326). Columbia University contributions to anthropology (No. 23). New York: Columbia University Press.
* Whorf, Benjamin Lee. (1936). The punctual and segmentative aspects of verbs in Hopi. "Language", "12" (2), 127-131. [http://www.jstor.org/pss/408755 www.jstor.org/pss/408755]
* Whorf, Benjamin Lee. (1938). Some verbal categories of Hopi. "Language", "14" (4), 275-286. [http://www.jstor.org/pss/409181 www.jstor.org/pss/409181]
* Whorf, Benjamin Lee. (1941). The relation of habitual thought and behavior to language. In L. Spier, A. I. Hallowell, & S. S. Newman (Eds.), "Language, culture, and personality: Essays in memory of Edward Sapir" (pp. 75-93). Menasha, WI: Sapir Memorial Publication Fund.
* Whorf, Benjamin Lee. (1946). The Hopi language, Toreva dialect. In O. Osgood (Ed.), "Linguistic structures of native America" (pp. 158-183). Viking Fund publications in anthroplogy (No. 6). New York: The Viking Fund, Inc.
* Whorf, Benjamin Lee. (1950). An American Indian model of the universe. "International Journal of American Linguistics", "16" (2), 67-72. [http://www.jstor.org/pss/1262850 www.jstor.org/pss/1262850]
* Whorf, Benjamin Lee. (1952). Linguistic factors in the terminology of Hopi architecture. "International Journal of American Linguistics", "19" (2), 141-145. [http://www.jstor.org/pss/1262812 www.jstor.org/pss/1262812]
* Whorf, Benjamin Lee. (1956). Discussion of Hopi linguistics. In J. B. Carroll (Ed.), "Language, thought, and reality: Selected writings of Benjamin L. Whorf" (pp. 102-111). New York: John Wiley.

External links

* [http://www.cs.vu.nl/~dick/Summaries/Languages/Hopi.pdf Hopi: Survey of an Uto-Aztecan Language]
* [http://www.museunacional.ufrj.br/linguistica/congresso/1/txhopi.pdf Hopi "-na"] (LaVerne Jeanne & Ken Hale)
* [http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=hop Ethnologue entry on the Hopi language]