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Uto-Aztecan (also Uto-Aztekan) is a Native American
Indigenous languages of the Americas

Indigenous languages of the Americas are spoken by Indigenous peoples of the Americas from the southern tip of South America to Alaska and Greenland, encompassing the land masses which constitute the Americas....
 language family
Language family

A language family is a group of languages related Genetic from a common ancestor, called the proto-language of that family.As with Alpha taxonomy, the evidence of relationship is observable shared characteristics....
. It is one of the largest (both in geographical extension and number of languages) and most well-established linguistic families of the Americas. Uto-Aztecan languages are found from the Great Basin
Great Basin

The Great Basin is a large, arid region of the western United States. Its boundaries depend on how it is defined. Its most common definition is the contiguous drainage basin, roughly between the Wasatch Mountains, in Utah and the Sierra Nevada , that has no natural outlet to the sea....
 of the Western United States
Western United States

The Western United States—commonly referred to as the American West or simply The West—traditionally refers to the region comprising the westernmost U.S....
 (Oregon
Oregon

Oregon is a U.S. state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. The area was inhabited by many indigenous tribes before the arrival of traders, explorers and settlers....
, Idaho
Idaho

The State of Idaho is a U.S. state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States of America. The state's largest city and Capital is Boise, Idaho....
, Montana
Montana

Montana is a U.S. state in the Western United States. The western third of the state contains numerous mountain ranges; other 'island' ranges are found in the central third of the state, for a total of 77 named ranges of the Rocky Mountains....
, Utah
Utah

The State of Utah is a western United States U.S. state of the United States. It was the List of U.S. states by date of statehood admitted to the United States on January 4, 1896....
, California
California

California is a U.S. state on the West Coast of the United States of the United States, along the Pacific Ocean. It is bordered by Oregon to the north, Nevada to the east, Arizona to the southeast, and to the south the Mexico state of Baja California....
, Nevada
Nevada

Nevada is a U.S. state located in the Western United States of the United States of America. The capital is Carson City and the largest city is Las Vegas, Nevada....
, Arizona
Arizona

The State of Arizona is a U.S. state located in the Southwestern United States of the United States. The capital and largest city is Phoenix, Arizona....
), through western, central and southern Mexico
Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federalism constitutionalism republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of Mexico....
 (incl. Sonora
Sonora

Sonora is one of the 31 States of Mexico and is located in the northwest of the country....
, Chihuahua, Nayarit
Nayarit

Nayarit is one of Political divisions of Mexico and is located on the central west coast, bordering the Pacific Ocean. Nayarit is surrounded by the states of Sinaloa to the northwest, Durango to the north, Zacatecas to the northeast and Jalisco to the south with the Pacific Ocean bordering it to the west....
, Durango
Durango

Durango is one of the constituent states of Mexico. Its population is 1,509,118. It has Mexico's second-lowest population density, after Baja California Sur....
, Zacatecas
Zacatecas

Zacatecas States of Mexico of Mexico is located in the north-central region and it is bounded to the northwest by Durango, to the north by Coahuila, to the east by San Luis Potos?, to the south by Aguascalientes and Guanajuato and to the southwest by Jalisco and Nayarit....
, Jalisco
Jalisco

Jalisco is a Mexican state in Mexico. The capital of Jalisco is the city of Guadalajara, Jalisco. In the 2005 census, Jalisco had a population of 6,752,113 people....
, Michoacán
Michoacán

Michoac?n formally Michoac?n de Ocampo , is one of the 31 constituent States of Mexico of Mexico. It borders the states of Colima and Jalisco to the west, Guanajuato and Quer?taro to the north, Mexico to the east, Guerrero to the south-east, and the Pacific Ocean to the south....
, Guerrero
Guerrero

The State of Guerrero is a state in the southern meridional region of Mexico. With an area of , it occupies about 3.3% of Mexican territory. It borders the Pacific Ocean to the south , Michoac?n to the west , Oaxaca to the east , and Mexico State , Morelos , and Puebla to the north ....
, San Luis Potosí
San Luis Potosí

The Mexico state of San Luis Potos? has an area of .It is in the north-central part of the Mexican republic, It borders Coahuila to the north, Nuevo Leon to the north-east, Tamaulipas to the east, Veracruz to the east, Hidalgo, Queretaro, and Guanajuato to the south,and Zacatecas to the north-west....
, Hidalgo, Puebla
Puebla

Puebla is a Political divisions of Mexico located in the center east of the country, to the east of Mexico City.The state of Puebla borders the states of Veracruz to the east, Hidalgo , Mexico State, Tlaxcala, and Morelos to the west, and Guerrero and Oaxaca to the south....
, Veracruz
Veracruz

Veracruz, formally Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave is one of the 31 states of Mexico that constitute the republic of Mexico....
, Morelos
Morelos

Morelos is one of the 31 constituent states of Mexico. Morelos has an area of about , making it the second-smallest of the country's states. Morelos is bordered by Mexico State to the north-east and north-west, the Distrito Federal to the north, Puebla to the east, and Guerrero to the south-west....
, Estado de México, and the Federal District), and into parts of Central America (Pipil
Pipil language

Pipil is a Uto-Aztecan language descended from Nahuatl which was spoken in several parts of present day Central America before the Spanish conquest....
 in El Salvador
El Salvador

El Salvador is the smallest country in the Americas and Central America by size, and the most densely populated nation in Central America. It borders on the Pacific Ocean between Guatemala and Honduras....
; extinct varieties in Guatemala
Guatemala

Guatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize and the Caribbean to the northeast, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast....
 and Honduras
Honduras

Honduras is a democratic republic in Central America. It was formerly known as Spanish Honduras to differentiate it from British Honduras ....
).






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Uto-Aztecan (also Uto-Aztekan) is a Native American
Indigenous languages of the Americas

Indigenous languages of the Americas are spoken by Indigenous peoples of the Americas from the southern tip of South America to Alaska and Greenland, encompassing the land masses which constitute the Americas....
 language family
Language family

A language family is a group of languages related Genetic from a common ancestor, called the proto-language of that family.As with Alpha taxonomy, the evidence of relationship is observable shared characteristics....
. It is one of the largest (both in geographical extension and number of languages) and most well-established linguistic families of the Americas. Uto-Aztecan languages are found from the Great Basin
Great Basin

The Great Basin is a large, arid region of the western United States. Its boundaries depend on how it is defined. Its most common definition is the contiguous drainage basin, roughly between the Wasatch Mountains, in Utah and the Sierra Nevada , that has no natural outlet to the sea....
 of the Western United States
Western United States

The Western United States—commonly referred to as the American West or simply The West—traditionally refers to the region comprising the westernmost U.S....
 (Oregon
Oregon

Oregon is a U.S. state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. The area was inhabited by many indigenous tribes before the arrival of traders, explorers and settlers....
, Idaho
Idaho

The State of Idaho is a U.S. state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States of America. The state's largest city and Capital is Boise, Idaho....
, Montana
Montana

Montana is a U.S. state in the Western United States. The western third of the state contains numerous mountain ranges; other 'island' ranges are found in the central third of the state, for a total of 77 named ranges of the Rocky Mountains....
, Utah
Utah

The State of Utah is a western United States U.S. state of the United States. It was the List of U.S. states by date of statehood admitted to the United States on January 4, 1896....
, California
California

California is a U.S. state on the West Coast of the United States of the United States, along the Pacific Ocean. It is bordered by Oregon to the north, Nevada to the east, Arizona to the southeast, and to the south the Mexico state of Baja California....
, Nevada
Nevada

Nevada is a U.S. state located in the Western United States of the United States of America. The capital is Carson City and the largest city is Las Vegas, Nevada....
, Arizona
Arizona

The State of Arizona is a U.S. state located in the Southwestern United States of the United States. The capital and largest city is Phoenix, Arizona....
), through western, central and southern Mexico
Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federalism constitutionalism republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of Mexico....
 (incl. Sonora
Sonora

Sonora is one of the 31 States of Mexico and is located in the northwest of the country....
, Chihuahua, Nayarit
Nayarit

Nayarit is one of Political divisions of Mexico and is located on the central west coast, bordering the Pacific Ocean. Nayarit is surrounded by the states of Sinaloa to the northwest, Durango to the north, Zacatecas to the northeast and Jalisco to the south with the Pacific Ocean bordering it to the west....
, Durango
Durango

Durango is one of the constituent states of Mexico. Its population is 1,509,118. It has Mexico's second-lowest population density, after Baja California Sur....
, Zacatecas
Zacatecas

Zacatecas States of Mexico of Mexico is located in the north-central region and it is bounded to the northwest by Durango, to the north by Coahuila, to the east by San Luis Potos?, to the south by Aguascalientes and Guanajuato and to the southwest by Jalisco and Nayarit....
, Jalisco
Jalisco

Jalisco is a Mexican state in Mexico. The capital of Jalisco is the city of Guadalajara, Jalisco. In the 2005 census, Jalisco had a population of 6,752,113 people....
, Michoacán
Michoacán

Michoac?n formally Michoac?n de Ocampo , is one of the 31 constituent States of Mexico of Mexico. It borders the states of Colima and Jalisco to the west, Guanajuato and Quer?taro to the north, Mexico to the east, Guerrero to the south-east, and the Pacific Ocean to the south....
, Guerrero
Guerrero

The State of Guerrero is a state in the southern meridional region of Mexico. With an area of , it occupies about 3.3% of Mexican territory. It borders the Pacific Ocean to the south , Michoac?n to the west , Oaxaca to the east , and Mexico State , Morelos , and Puebla to the north ....
, San Luis Potosí
San Luis Potosí

The Mexico state of San Luis Potos? has an area of .It is in the north-central part of the Mexican republic, It borders Coahuila to the north, Nuevo Leon to the north-east, Tamaulipas to the east, Veracruz to the east, Hidalgo, Queretaro, and Guanajuato to the south,and Zacatecas to the north-west....
, Hidalgo, Puebla
Puebla

Puebla is a Political divisions of Mexico located in the center east of the country, to the east of Mexico City.The state of Puebla borders the states of Veracruz to the east, Hidalgo , Mexico State, Tlaxcala, and Morelos to the west, and Guerrero and Oaxaca to the south....
, Veracruz
Veracruz

Veracruz, formally Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave is one of the 31 states of Mexico that constitute the republic of Mexico....
, Morelos
Morelos

Morelos is one of the 31 constituent states of Mexico. Morelos has an area of about , making it the second-smallest of the country's states. Morelos is bordered by Mexico State to the north-east and north-west, the Distrito Federal to the north, Puebla to the east, and Guerrero to the south-west....
, Estado de México, and the Federal District), and into parts of Central America (Pipil
Pipil language

Pipil is a Uto-Aztecan language descended from Nahuatl which was spoken in several parts of present day Central America before the Spanish conquest....
 in El Salvador
El Salvador

El Salvador is the smallest country in the Americas and Central America by size, and the most densely populated nation in Central America. It borders on the Pacific Ocean between Guatemala and Honduras....
; extinct varieties in Guatemala
Guatemala

Guatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize and the Caribbean to the northeast, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast....
 and Honduras
Honduras

Honduras is a democratic republic in Central America. It was formerly known as Spanish Honduras to differentiate it from British Honduras ....
). Utah
Utah

The State of Utah is a western United States U.S. state of the United States. It was the List of U.S. states by date of statehood admitted to the United States on January 4, 1896....
 is named after the indigenous Uto-Aztecan Ute
Ute Tribe

The Utes are an ethnically related group of Native Americans in the United States now living primarily in Utah and Colorado. There are three Ute tribal Indian reservation: Uintah and Ouray Indian Reservation in northeastern Utah ; Southern Ute Indian Reservation in Colorado ; and Ute Mountain Ute Indian Reservation which primarily lies in Co...
 people. Classical Nahuatl, the language of the Aztec
Aztec

Aztec is a term used to refer to certain ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl and who achieved political and military dominance over large parts of Mesoamerica in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, a period referred to as the Late post-Classic period in Mesoamerican chronology....
s, and its modern relatives
Nahuatl dialects

Nahuatl language, a member of the Uto-Aztecan languages language family, consists of a large number of dialects, many of which belong to one or another dialect continuum....
 are part of the Uto-Aztecan family.

History of classification

The similarities between the Uto-Aztecan languages were noted as early as 1859 by J.C.E. Buschmann. However, Buschmann failed to recognize the genetic affiliation between the Aztecan branch and the Northern Uto-Aztecan languages, instead ascribing the similarities between the two groups to Aztec contact influence. Brinton included the Aztecan languages in the linguistic family 1891 and coined the term Uto-Aztecan. The idea nonetheless remained controversial, and was rejected in Powell's 1891 classification.

The Uto-Aztecan family was established through systematic work in the early 1900s by linguists such as Alfred L. Kroeber
Alfred L. Kroeber

Alfred Louis Kroeber was one of the most influential figures in United States anthropology in the first half of the twentieth century.Kroeber was born in Hoboken, New Jersey and attended Columbia College at the age of 16, earning an A.B....
, who established the relations between the Shoshonean languages, and especially Edward Sapir
Edward Sapir

Edward Sapir , was a Jewish-Germany-United States anthropologist-linguistics and a leader in American structuralism. He was one of the creators of what is now called the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis....
, who proved the unity between Powell's Sonoran and Shoshonean languages in a series of groundbreaking applications of the comparative method
Historical linguistics

Historical linguistics is the study of language change. It has five main concerns:* to describe and account for observed changes in particular languages;...
 to unwritten Native American languages.

Most issues related to Uto-Aztecan subgrouping are uncontroversial. Six groupings are universally accepted as valid--the Numic, Takic, Pimic, Taracahitic, Corachol, and Aztecan branches--along with two ungrouped languages--Tübatulabal and Hopi. Higher level relations between these groups remain controversial. The Sonoran branch (including Pimic, Taracahitic and Corachol) and Shoshonean branch (including Numic, Takic, Tübatulabal and Hopi) first postulated in the 19th century, in particular, are not accepted by a number of scholars.

Uto-Aztecan has been included in some long range proposals of linguistic super-families. A hypothesis proposed by Benjamin Lee Whorf relating Uto-Aztecan to Kiowa-Tanoan, in an Aztec-Tanoan family formerly had modest support, but Lyle Campbell (1997) and the great majority of modern specialists consider this hypothesis possible, but unproven (Mithun 1999). Joseph Greenberg
Joseph Greenberg

Joseph Harold Greenberg was a prominent and controversial American linguistics, principally known for his work in two areas, linguistic typology and the genetic relationship of languages....
 included Uto-Aztecan in his widely criticized and highly controversial Amerind
Amerind languages

Amerind is a putative higher-level language family proposed by Joseph Greenberg in his 1987 book Language in the Americas. In this book Greenberg proposed that all of the indigenous languages of the Americas belong to one of three language family....
 macro-family along with all Native American linguistic families except for Eskimo-Aleut and Na-Dene.

Geographical extension and Homeland

The proto-Uto-Aztecan homeland is generally thought to have been somewhere in the Southwestern United States
Southwestern United States

The Southwestern area of the United States could be defined as the states west of the Mississippi River, with the qualification of a certain northern limit, such as the 37th parallel north, 38th parallel north, 39th parallel north, or 40th parallel north line....
 - Arizona
Arizona

The State of Arizona is a U.S. state located in the Southwestern United States of the United States. The capital and largest city is Phoenix, Arizona....
, New Mexico
New Mexico

New Mexico is a U. S. State located in the Southwestern United States of the United States. Inhabited by Native Americans in the United States populations for many centuries, it has also has been part of the Spanish Empire viceroyalty of New Spain, part of Mexico, and a U.S....
 or northern Mexico
Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federalism constitutionalism republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of Mexico....
 where the first split between Northern and Southern branches took place. The homeland of the Numic branch has been placed near Death Valley
Death Valley

Death Valley is a desert located in the southwestern United States. It is the lowest, driest, and hottest location in North America. Badwater, a depression located within Death Valley, is the specific location of the lowest elevation in North America at 85.5 meter below sea level....
, California
California

California is a U.S. state on the West Coast of the United States of the United States, along the Pacific Ocean. It is bordered by Oregon to the north, Nevada to the east, Arizona to the southeast, and to the south the Mexico state of Baja California....
 and the Southern Uto-Aztecan languages are thought to have spread out from a place in north-western Mexico in southern Sonora
Sonora

Sonora is one of the 31 States of Mexico and is located in the northwest of the country....
 or northern Sinaloa
Sinaloa

Sinaloa is one of the 31 mexican state of Mexico....
.

Original locations of living and extinct Uto-Aztecan languages in the USA and Mexico


Locations of living Uto-Aztecan languages in Mexico and Mesoamerica


The proto-Uto-Aztecan language


Vowels

Proto-Uto-Aztecan is reconstructed as having an unusual five-vowel system: . Langacker (1970) demonstrated that the fifth vowel should be reconstructed as as opposed to —there had been a long-running dispute over the proper reconstruction (Campbell 1997:136).

Consonants

Bilabial
Bilabial consonant

In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a consonant articulated with both lips. The bilabial consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:...
 		 Coronal
Coronal consonant

Coronal consonants are articulated with the flexible front part of the tongue. Only the coronal consonants can be divided into apical consonant , laminal consonant , domed consonant , or sub-apical consonant , as well as a few rarer orientations, because only the front of the tongue has such dexterity....
 		 Palatal
Palatal consonant

Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate . Consonants with the tip of the tongue curled back against the palate are called retroflex consonant....
 		 Velar
Velar consonant

Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the Soft palate)....
 		 Labialized
velar 		Glottal
Glottal consonant

Glottal consonants are consonants articulated with the glottis. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the so-called fricatives, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have; in fact, some do not consider them to be consonants at all....
Stop
Stop consonant

A stop, plosive, or occlusive is a consonant sound produced by stopping the airflow in the vocal tract. The terms plosive and stop are usually used interchangeably, but they are not perfect synonyms....
Affricate
Affricate consonant

Affricate consonants begin as stop consonants but release as a fricative consonant rather than directly into the following vowel....
  
Fricative
Fricative consonant

Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two Place of articulation close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German language , the final consonant of Bach; or the side of the tongue ag...
Nasal
Nasal consonant

A nasal consonant is produced with a lowered soft palate in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. The oral cavity still acts as a resonance chamber for the sound, but the air does not escape through the mouth as it is blocked by the tongue....
  
Rhotic
Rhotic

In linguistics, rhotic can refer to:* Rhotic consonant, such as the sound in red* R-colored vowel, such as the sound in Midwestern American English pronunciation of fur and before a consonant as in hard....
  
Semivowel
Semivowel

Semivowels, also known as glides or non-syllabic vowels, are vowels that form diphthongs with full syllable vowels. That is, they are vowel-like sounds that do not form the syllable nucleus of a syllable or mora ; they are not the most prominence part of the syllable....
  
and may have actually been and , respectively.

Genealogy of Uto-Aztecan languages


Uto-Aztecan has long been accepted as a genuine linguistic family, and there is general agreement on the eight primary groups into which it is divided. Disagreement arises as to the question of which varieties are separate languages and which are dialects of a single language; and higher-level groupings. Below is a consensus classification based on Campbell (1997), Mithun (1999), and Goddard (1999). The notes discuss divergent interpretations proposed by other recent authorities, such as Goddard (1996), Miller (1983), and Mithun (1999). Among the differences are the larger level subgroupings called Northern and Southern Uto-Aztecan. Some linguists have argued for a grouping including Takic, Numic, Hopi, and Tübatulabal and have grouped them together as "Northern Uto-Aztecan." In the southern branch, some linguists formerly grouped the Pimic, Taracahitan, and Corachol languages into a larger level group called "Sonoran", but this grouping has also not gained wide acceptance. Many scholars instead see a closer connection between Pimic, Taracahitan, Corachol, and Aztecan and group the four into a common group called "Southern Uto-Aztecan", but this also has its critics. Ties between Corachol and Aztecan have been recognized by Kaufman
Terrence Kaufman

Terrence Kaufman is an United States linguistics specializing in documentation of unwritten languages, Mesoamerican historical linguistics and language contact phenomena....
 (2001 ), who argues that they are best understood as the result of a period of close contact and linguistic diffusion between the Nahuan and Coracholan groups. Most scholars recognize an increasing need to look at the breakup of Proto-Uto-Aztecan as a case of the gradual disintegration of a dialect continuum (Mithun 1999).

Northern Uto-Aztecan


Hopi
Hopi language

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

Tübatulabal

Numic
Numic languages

Numic is a branch of the Uto-Aztecan languages family. It includes seven languages spoken by Native Americans in the United States peoples traditionally living in the Great Basin, Colorado River basin, and southern Great Plains....
 
  • Central Numic languages
    • Comanche
      Comanche language

      Comanche is a Uto-Aztecan languages spoken by the Comanche people. The Comanche split off from the Shoshone soon after they acquired horses around 1705....
       
    • Timbisha
      Timbisha language

      The Timbisha language is the language of the Native Americans in the United States people who have inhabited the region in and around Death Valley, California since late prehistoric times....
       (a dialect chain with main regional varieties being Western, Central , and Eastern )
    • Shoshone
      Shoshone language

      Shoshone is a Native Americans in the United States language spoken by the Shoshone people.Shoshone speaking Native Americans occupy areas of Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, Idaho and Montana....
       (a dialect chain with main regional varieties being Western , Gosiute , Northern , and Eastern )
  • Southern Numic languages
    • Kawaiisu
      Kawaiisu language

      The Kawaiisu language is an Uto-Aztecan language spoken by the Kawaiisu people of California....
       
    • Colorado River
      Ute language

      The Ute language , of the Numic languages of the Uto-Aztecan languages language family, is actually a dialect chain which stretches from southeastern California to Colorado....
       (a dialect chain with main regional varieties being Chemehuevi , Southern Paiute , and Ute )
  • Western Numic languages
    • Mono
      Mono language (Native American)

      Mono is a Native Americans in the United States language of the Numic languages group of Uto-Aztecan languages. It is spoken in the southern Sierra Nevada mountains and the Owens Valley of east-central California....
       (two main dialects: Eastern and Western )
    • Northern Paiute
      Northern Paiute language

      Northern Paiute is a Western Numic language language of the Uto-Aztecan language family, which according to Marianne Mithun had around 500 fluent speakers in 1994, although Ethnologue puts the number of speakers in 1999 as 1,631....
       (a dialect chain with main regional varieties being Southern Nevada , Northern Nevada , Oregon , and Bannock )


Takic
Serrano-Gabrielino
Serran Serrano
Serrano language

The Serrano language is a language in the Takic branch of the Uto-Aztecan family spoken by the Serrano people of Southern California. The language is closely related to Tongva language and Kitanemuk language....
  Kitanemuk
Kitanemuk language

Kitanemuk was a Northern Uto-Aztecan languages of the Takic languages. It was very closely related to Serrano language, and may have been a dialect of Serrano....
 † Gabrielino-Fernandeño
Tongva language

The Tongva language is an Uto-Aztecan languages language spoken by the Tongva, a Native Americans in the United States people who live in and around Los Angeles, California....
 †
Cupan
Cahuilla-Cupeño Cahuilla
Cahuilla

The Cahuilla are a tribe of Native Americans in the United States that have inhabited the U.S. state of California for more than 2,000 years, originally covering an area of about 2,400 square miles ....
  Cupeño
Cupeño

The Cupe?o are a Native Americans in the United States tribe that historically lived about 40 miles inland and 50 miles north of the modern day U.S.-Mexico border in the Peninsular Range of Southern California....
  Luiseño-Juaneño
Luiseño language

The Luise?o language is an Uto-Aztecan languages language of California spoken by the Luise?o, a Native Americans in the United States people who at the time of the first contacts with the Spanish in the 16th century inhabited the coastal area of southern California, ranging 50 miles from the southern part of Los Angeles County, California, C...
 

Southern Uto-Aztecan


Pimic
Piman languages

Piman refers a group of languages within the Uto-Aztecan languages family that are spoken by ethnic groups spanning from Arizona in the north to Durango, Mexico in the south....
 (Tepiman)
Pima-Papago
O'odham language

O'odham is an Uto-Aztecan languages language of southern Arizona and northern Sonora where the Tohono O'odham and Pima reside. As of the year 2000, there were estimated to be approximately 9750 speakers in the United States and Mexico combined, although there may be more due to underrepresentation....
  (Upper Piman)
Pima Bajo
Pima Bajo

Pima Bajo is a Mexican indigenous language of the Piman languages branch of the Uto-Aztecan languages linguistic family, spoken by around 1000 speakers in northern Mexico....
  (Lower Piman)
Tepehuán language
Tepehuán language

Tepehu?n is the name of two closely related languages of the Piman languages branch of the Uto-Aztecan languages linguistic family, both spoken in northern Mexico....
s (Northern and Southern )
Tepecano †
Taracahitic
Tarahumaran
Tarahumara
Tarahumara language

The Tarahumara language is a Mexican indigenous language of the Uto-Aztecan languages spoken by around 70,000 Tarahumara people in the state of Chihuahua ....
  Guarijío
Guarijio language

Guarijio is an Uto-Aztecan languages language of the states of Chihuahua and Sonora in northwestern Mexico. It is spoken by around 5,000 people, most of whom are monolinguals....
  (Varihio)
Tubar †
Cahita
Cáhita

C?hita is a group of Indigenous Peoples of the Americas, belonging to the Piman family, and numbering some 40,000.References...
  (Yaqui
Yaqui language

Yaqui , or Yoeme, is a Native American language of the Uto-Aztecan family. It is spoken by about 15,000 people, mostly of the border Yaqui tribe, in the region around the Mexico mexican state of Sonora, and Arizona in the United States....
 -Mayo -Cahita)
Opatan
Ópata
Opata language

?pata is the name of the Uto-Aztecan languages language spoken by the Opata people of northern central Sonora in Mexico. It was believed to be dead already in 1930, and Carl Sofus Lumholtz reported the Opata to have become "Mexicanized" and lost their language and customs already when traveling through Sonora in the 1890s, but in a recent s...
  † Eudeve †? (Heve, Dohema) Corachol-Aztecan
Cora-Huichol
Cora
Cora language

The Cora language is an Languages of Mexico of the uto-Aztecan languages Historical linguistics. It is spoken by the ethnic group that is widely known as the Cora people but who refer to themselves as Na?yarite....
  Huichol
Huichol language

The Huichol language is an indigenous language of Mexico which belongs to the Uto-Aztecan languages language family. It is spoken by the ethnic group widely known as the Huichol , whose mountainous territory extends over portions of the States of Mexico of Jalisco, Nayarit, and Durango, mostly in Jalisco....
 
Nahuan
Proto-Nahuan

Proto-Nahuan is the hypothetical daughter language of the Proto-Uto-Aztecan language which is the common ancestor from which the modern Nahuatl have developed. Some phonological changes shared by all Nahuan languages are:...
  (Aztecan, Nahua, Nahuatlan)
Pochutec
Pochutec

Pochutec is an extinct language Uto-Aztecan language of the Nahuan branch which was spoken in and around the town of Pochutla on the Pacific coast of Oaxaca, Mexico....
  † Core Nahua
Nahuatl dialects

Nahuatl language, a member of the Uto-Aztecan languages language family, consists of a large number of dialects, many of which belong to one or another dialect continuum....
 Pipil
Pipil language

Pipil is a Uto-Aztecan language descended from Nahuatl which was spoken in several parts of present day Central America before the Spanish conquest....
 (Nahuate, Nawat) ) Nahuatl
Nahuatl language

Nahuatl is a group of related languages and dialects of the Nahuan branch of the Uto-Aztecan language family.Collectively they are spoken by an estimated Nahua peoples, most of whom live in Central Mexico....
  (Mexicano, Aztec )

In addition to the above languages for which linguistic evidence exists, there were several dozen extinct languages with little or no documentation in Northern Mexico, many of which were probably Uto-Aztecan (Campbell 1997).

† = extinct
Extinct language

An extinct language is a language which no longer has any speakers .Extinct languages may be contrasted with Language death: no longer spoken as a main language....


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