Tarahumara language

The Tarahumara language (native name Rarámuri/Ralámuli ra'ícha "people language") is a Mexican indigenous language of the Uto-Aztecan language family spoken by around 70,000 Tarahumara (Rarámuri/Ralámuli) people in the state of Chihuahua, according to an estimate by the government of Mexico.

Tarahumara was previously considered to belong to the Taracahitic group of the Uto-Aztecan languages, but this grouping is no longer considered valid. It is now grouped in a Tarahumaran group along with its closest linguistic relative, the Guarijío language (Varihio, Huarijío), which is also spoken in the Sierra Madre Occidental.

Rarámuri is spoken by 70,000 or more indigenous Mexicans living in the state of Chihuahua. There is no consensus among specialists on the number of dialects: competing proposals include two (Western and Eastern); four (Western, Northern, Southern, Eastern); and five, according to field surveys conducted in the 1990s by linguists working for the Mexican government and Ethnologue. Mexican researchers emphasize that the knowledge of Rarámuri dialects is still patchy, and they say there is a possibility that there are many more than five dialects. The five divisions tentatively recognized by the Mexican government are not the same ones proposed by Ethnologue.

The landscape of the area is dominated almost entirely by the Sierra Madre Occidental, a mountain range in western Mexico. As of 2011, Ethnologue splits Eastern into four dialects. The five dialects recognized by Ethnologue, with Ethnologue's own current designations and population estimates, are Western (40,000 speakers); Central (55,000, including 10,000 monolinguals); Northern (300); Southeastern (no estimate given); and Southwestern (100). The figure of 40,000 is cited as an being official census figure from 1996.

The language is used in primary schools and local administration as well as in traditional religious practices and local business transactions. According to Ethnologue, Spanish speakers who live near or among the Tarahumara often use it in commerce as well. At the same time, Spanish is becoming ever more prevalent in indigenous communities. Currently, only one percent of the speakers are literate in their language, while 20 percent of them are literate in Spanish.