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.

Internal classification

Northern Tepehuán

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

Southern Tepehuán

Southern Tepehuán is spoken by about 45,000 people, about equally divided into: 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.

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.

Morphology

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

Phonology

Northern Tepehuan

The following is representative of the Northern dialect of Tepehuan.

Vowels

Consonants

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

Southern Tepehuan

The following is representative of the Southeastern dialect of Tepehuan.

Vowels

Consonants

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

Sample Tepehuan Text

Northern Tepehuan: Southeastern Tepehuan: