Hopi language

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 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 Hopi-English dictionary 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

	Front	Central	Back
Central	i (ɪ)	u (ɨ)
Close-mid	ö (ø)		o (o)
Open-mid	e (ɛ)		a (ɔ)

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 is necessary to unround the vowel /u/ and articulate further forward in the mouth. This adjustment is closest to the IPA vowel /ɨ/.

Consonants

Third Mesa Hopi

		Labial	Alveolar		Post- alveolar	Palatal	Velar				Glottal
							fronted	neutral		backed
			plain	fricated				labial	plain
Stop		p	t	ts			ky [cj]	kw [kʷ]	k	q [ḵ]	’ [ʔ]
Fricative	voiceless		s								h
	voiced	v [β]			r [ʐ]
Nasal		m	n				ngy [ɲ]	ngw [ŋʷ]	ng [ŋ]
Approximant			l			y [j]		w

Second Mesa Hopi

		Labial	Alveolar		Post- alveolar	Palatal	Velar				Glottal
							fronted	neutral		backed
			plain	fricated				labial	plain
Stop	plain	p	t	ts			kʸ	kʷ	k	q	ʔ
	preaspirated	ʰp	ʰt	ʰts				ʰkʷ	ʰk	ʰq
Fricative	voiceless		s								h
	voiced	v			r
Nasal	voiceless	m̥	n̥							ŋ̊
	voiced	m	n				ŋʸ	ŋʷ		ŋ
Approximant	voiceless		l̥			ẙ		w̥
	voiced		l			y		w

The voiced labial fricative v varies (idiolectal free variation) between labiodental and bilabial [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 [p]. Second Mesa speakers have a voiceless labial [f] syllable-finally.

The glottal stop is found much more frequently in Hopi than in English, particularly at the beginning of a word, before the final consonant, or at the ends of words after a vowel.

Orthography

		Labial	Alveolar	Post- alveolar	Palatal	Velar				Glottal
						fronted	neutral		backed
							plain	labial
Stop		p	t			ky	k	kw	q	’
Fricative	voiceless		s							h
	voiced	v	ts	r
Nasal		m	n			ngy	ng	ngw
Approximant			l		y			w

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 /k/, /q/ and /ŋ/ 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 is long or it is 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.

Tone

The Third Mesa dialect of Hopi has developed on long vowels, diphthongs, and vowel + sonorant sequences. This dialect has either falling tones or level tones.

The falling tone (high-low) in the Third Mesa dialect corresponds to either a vowel + preaspirated consonant, a vowel + voiceless sonorant, or a vowel + h sequence in the Second Mesa dialect recorded by Whorf.

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 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:

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.

See also

• Qatsi trilogy

Bibliography

• Hopi Dictionary Project (University of Arizona Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology). 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, 1998. ISBN 0-8165-1789-4
• Jeanne, LaVerne Masayesva. (1978). Aspects of Hopi grammar. (Doctoral dissertation, MIT). Online: 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: www.jstor.org/pss/1264788
• Kalectaca, Milo. Lessons in Hopi. Tucson, Arizona: University of Arizona Press, 1978
• Kennard, Edward A. and Albert Yava. Field Mouse Goes to War: Tusan Homichi Tuwvöta. Palmer Lake, Colorado: Filter Press, 1999
• Kluckhohn, Clyde; & MacLeish, Kenneth. (1955). Moencopi variations from Whorf's Second Mesa Hopi. International Journal of American Linguistics, 21 (2), 150-156. Online: www.jstor.org/pss/1263941
• Manaster-Ramer. (1986). Genesis of Hopi tones. International Journal of American Linguistics, 52 (2), 154-160. Online: www.jstor.org/pss/1265374
• Seqaquaptewa, E. Iisaw niqw tsaayantotaqam tsiròot. Santa Fe, NM: Clear Light, 1994
• Seqaquaptewa, E. Iisaw niqw yöngösonhoya. Santa Fe, NM: Clear Light, 1994
• Voegelin, C. F. (1956). Phonemicizing for dialect study: With reference to Hopi. Language, 32 (1), 116-135. Online: www.jstor.org/pss/410660
• Whorf, Benjamin. 'The Hopi Language, Toreva Dialect' in Linguistic Structures of Native America. New York: The Viking Fund, 1946

External links

• Hopi: Survey of an Uto-Aztecan Language
• Hopi -na (LaVerne Jeanne & Ken Hale)
• Ethnologue entry on the Hopi language