Everything about Hopi Language totally explained
Hopi is a
Uto-Aztecan language spoken by the
Hopi people 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, at least 40 of them monolingual.
Despite the fact that relatively few people can speak Hopi, it's very unlikely that it'll 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.
There are dialectal differences between First, Second and Third Mesa Hopi. The most thorough analysis of the Hopi language is
Benjamin Whorf's study of one speaker of the Second Mesa Hopi. In his study, he states that the Second Mesa is the most archaic and phonemically complex of the dialects, even though it has the fewest speakers.
Phonology
Vowels
There are six basic vowels in Hopi - four that are pronounced similarly to English vowels and two that are quite different -
"ö" and
"u".
The vowel
"ö" in Hopi is pronounced by rounding the vowel /ɛ/ found in words like pet. It then becomes more equivalent to the IPA sound /ø/.
For the Hopi sound
"u", it's necessary to unround the vowel /u/ and articulate further forward in the mouth. This adjustment is closest to the IPA vowel /ɨ/.
Consonants
There are several differences between some of the consonants in the Hopi language and English.
The
voiced labial fricative v is pronounced the same as in English when it's placed before a vowel. Before a consonant and at the end of words, it isn't as voiced. Furthermore, some speakers of Hopi alternate the use of
v and
p depending on their position in a word.
The
glottal stop is found much more frequently in Hopi than in English, particularly before vowels at the beginning of a word, or before the final consonant or vowel at the end of a word.
There are also some consonants that can only be transcribed as a combination of letters and sounds in English but are single letters and sounds in Hopi. These are the consonants
ky,
kw,
qw,
ngy and
ngw. These sounds are realised as a variation of the IPA sounds /}/, /}/ and /}/ as shown in the table above.
Syllable structure
The most common syllable clusters are CV and CVC.
The CVCC cluster is very rare due to limited number of CC combinations in the language. This is also makes it unusual to find the intersyllablic clusters C-C and CC-C.
Stress
The stress pattern in Hopi follows a simple rule that applies to nearly all words.
- In words with one or two vowels, the first vowel is stressed.
- Where there are more than two vowels, the first vowel is stressed if it's long or it's directly followed by two consonants. Otherwise, the second vowel is stressed.
Some exceptions to this rule are
sikisve "car",
wehekna "spill" and
warikiwta ""running". We would expect the second vowel to be stressed but in fact the first one is stressed in these examples.
Morphology
Suffixes
Hopi uses suffixes for a variety of purposes. Some examples are:
| suffix |
purpose |
example |
meaning |
| mi |
to, towards |
itamumi |
towards us |
| ni |
future |
tuuvani |
will throw |
| ngwu |
habitual suffix |
tuuvangwu |
usually throws |
| pe |
location |
Ismo'walpe |
at Ismo'wala |
| q |
distance suffix |
atkyamiq |
all the way to the bottom |
Hopi also has free postpositions:
| akw |
with (instrumental) |
| angkw |
from |
| ep |
at/in/on |
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:
| nominative |
objective |
meaning |
| himutski |
himutskit |
shrub |
| iisaw |
iisawuy |
coyote |
| itam |
itamuy |
we/us |
| nuva |
nuvat |
snow |
| nu' |
nuy |
I/me |
| paahu |
paahut |
spring water |
| pam |
put |
he/she/it |
| puma |
pumuy |
they |
| tuuwa |
tuuwat |
sand |
| um |
ung |
you |
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's 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:
| male speech |
female speech |
meaning |
| a'ni |
hin'ur |
very |
| kwakwhay |
askwali |
thank you |
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.
Syntax
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 /ɔ/, e /ɛ/, i /ɪ/, o /o/, u /ɨ/ and ö /ø/). Long vowels are written double: aa, ee, ii, oo, uu, öö.
Consonants are: ’ /ʔ/, h /h/, k /k/, ky /kʲ/, kw /kʷ/, l /l/, m /m/, n /n/, ng /ŋ/, ngw /ŋʷ/, ngy /ŋʲ/, p /p/, q /q/, qw /qʷ/, r /ʒ/, s /s/, t /t/, ts z/, v /β/, w /w/, y /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”.” However, other linguists and philosophers are skeptical of Whorf's argument, and his findings on Hopi have been disputed or rejected.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Hopi Language'.
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