Jemez language
| Jemez | |
|---|---|
| Towa | |
| Native to | United States |
| Region | New Mexico |
| Ethnicity | Jemez Pueblo |
|
Native speakers
|
1,800 (2007) |
|
Tanoan
|
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | |
| Glottolog | jeme1245 |
| Linguasphere | 64-CBA-a |
Towa language distribution in the State of New Mexico
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Jemez (also Towa) is a Tanoan language spoken by the Jemez Pueblo people in New Mexico. It has no written form, as tribal rules do not allow it.
Its speakers are mainly farmers and craftsmen. The language is only spoken in Jemez Pueblo, New Mexico, but as 90% of the tribal Jemez members do speak it, it is not considered to be extremely endangered. It was also spoken at Pecos Pueblo until the 19th century, when the remaining members of that community moved to Jemez.
Consonants that are in parenthesis occur only in limited occasion determined by phonological rules. [f] and [r] occur only in loan words.
The following chart shows the six distinctive vowel positions in Jemez:
All six can occur as short and long vowels, and all but /e/ can occur as short nasal and long nasal vowels. This gives a total of twenty-two distinctive vowel sounds. Note that vowel length is only contrastive in the first syllable of a word and other syllables' vowels are measurably shorter
Jemez has four tones: High, Falling, Mid, and Low. Word-initial syllables only have high or falling tone; other syllables have mid or low tones (though some syllables that follow a high tone also have high tone). This, typically tri-syllablic words have tone patterns such as HHL, HML, HLM, HLL, and FLM.
Some loan words do break these rules however, such as the Spanish loans for coffee, horse, and orange. These words have a high tone and contrastive vowel length in the second syllable, while the first syllable carries low tone.
Jemez high tones are similar to those of Mandarin Chinese, except there's a characteristic slight rise at the end. Voiced consonants tend to lower the onset of pitch in high tones. If there are several high tones in a row, the pitch also tends to rise throughout. Falling tones fall from the level of high to mid pitch.
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Wikipedia