Hopi language facts for kids

Hopi (Hopi: Hopílavayi) is a language spoken by the Hopi people. They are a Native American group living in northeastern Arizona, United States. Hopi is part of the Uto-Aztecan language family.

Over the years, fewer people have been speaking Hopi. In 1990, about 5,000 people spoke Hopi. This was about 75% of the Hopi population. But only 40 of them spoke only Hopi and no other language. A study in 1998 showed that all Hopi elders (60 years or older) spoke the language well. However, only 5% of children (2–19 years old) were fluent.

Even with this decline, there are efforts to keep the language alive. Hopi and Navajo languages are supported by special education programs in Arizona. Some children are learning these Native American languages as their first language. Recently, new Hopi language programs have started for children on the reservation.

Keeping the Hopi Language Alive

Many Hopi children are now learning the language at home. A big Hopi-English dictionary has been published. It was put together by Emory Sekaquaptewa and others. A group called the Hopi Literacy Project works to promote the language.

In 2013, a special program called the Hopi Lavayi Nest Model Program was planned. This program helps families with young children (birth to 5 years old) learn Hopi. In 2004, a group called Mesa Media was started. It is a non-profit organization that helps bring the language back to life. Since 2019, more programs have started. These programs use language immersion, where children learn by being fully surrounded by the Hopi language.

Different Ways of Speaking Hopi

The Hopi language has different ways of speaking, called dialects. Benjamin Lee Whorf, a famous linguist, identified four main dialects:

• First Mesa (also called Whorf's Polacca)
• Mishongnovi (also called Whorf's Toreva)
• Shipaulovi (also called Whorf's Sipaulovi)
• Third Mesa (also called Whorf's Oraibi)

First Mesa Hopi is spoken on First Mesa. This is the eastern mesa, in Polacca village and Walpi pueblo. People from the Arizona Tewa group also live on First Mesa. They speak Tewa, along with Hopi and English.

Mishongnovi is spoken on Second Mesa. This is the central mesa, in Mishongnovi village. Fewer people speak Mishongnovi compared to First and Third Mesa dialects. Shipaulovi is also spoken on Second Mesa, in Shipaulovi village. This village is close to Mishongnovi.

The Third Mesa dialect is spoken on Third Mesa. This is the western mesa, in Oraibi village and nearby areas. It is also spoken in Moenkopi village, which is west of Third Mesa.

Benjamin Whorf's first study of Hopi focused on the Mishongnovi dialect. He believed Mishongnovi was the oldest and most complex dialect. However, the Third Mesa dialect keeps some older features that Mishongnovi has lost. For example, younger speakers of Third Mesa sometimes drop a "w" sound in certain words.

How Hopi Connects with Other Languages

Hopi is part of a group of languages in the Pueblo area. This group includes Tanoan languages, Keresan languages, Zuni, and Navajo.

Hopi speakers have traditionally used Hopi to talk with Zuni people. They have also been in close contact with the Tewa language for over 300 years. This is because the Arizona Tewa people, who speak Tewa, moved to First Mesa after the Pueblo Revolt in 1680. The Arizona Tewa often helped translate between Hopi, Tewa, Navajo, Spanish, and English speakers.

The Hopi people first met Spanish explorers in 1540. In 1629, a small group of Franciscan missionaries arrived. They built a church but were expelled in 1680 during the Pueblo Revolt. Because of these experiences, the Hopi people often resisted adopting Spanish ways.

Hopi has also borrowed some words from other languages over time. These are called loanwords.

How Hopi Sounds and is Written

Hopi has six main vowel sounds. It also has different consonant sounds depending on the dialect. For example, the Mishongnovi dialect has more consonant sounds than the Third Mesa dialect.

Writing Hopi

Hopi is written using the Latin alphabet, which is the same alphabet English uses.

• Vowels are written as: a, e, i, o, u, and ö.
• Long vowels are written by doubling the letter, like aa or ee.

Some consonants are written with two letters, like ng or ts. Sometimes, a period is used to show when sounds belong to different parts of a word. For example, kwaahu means 'eagle', but kuk.wuwàaqe means 'to follow tracks'.

The Deseret alphabet was also used historically for Hopi. This alphabet was created by Mormon scholars. An English–Hopi dictionary from 1860 was found in 2014, written using this alphabet.

Word Structure

The most common way sounds are put together in Hopi words is a consonant followed by a vowel (CV). Sometimes, it's a consonant, vowel, and then another consonant (CVC).

Word Stress

Hopi words usually have a clear stress pattern.

• For words with one or two vowels, the first vowel is stressed.
• For words with more than two vowels, the first vowel is stressed if it is long. It is also stressed if it is followed by two consonants. Otherwise, the second vowel is stressed.

There are a few words that don't follow this rule, like sikisve (car).

Word Tone

The Third Mesa dialect of Hopi uses tone. This means the pitch of your voice changes the meaning of a word. This happens on long vowels or certain sound combinations. This dialect has falling tones (high to low pitch) or level tones.

How Hopi Words Change

Hopi uses suffixes a lot. Suffixes are small parts added to the end of words to change their meaning. For example:

Hopi also has words called postpositions. These are like prepositions in English, but they come after the noun.

Nouns (names of people, places, things) change their form depending on their role in a sentence. This is called oblique marking. For example, -t is added to simple nouns, and -y is added to nouns that refer to two people, or to plural nouns.

Verbs (action words) also use suffixes. However, it's not always easy to guess which suffix goes with which verb. For example, -lawu and -ta both mean an action is ongoing, but you have to learn which one to use for each verb.

Hopi also has some words that are different depending on whether a male or female is speaking.

How Hopi Sentences are Built

Word Order

The simplest Hopi sentence has a subject (who or what is doing the action) and a predicate (what the subject is doing or being). For example, 'Maana wuupa' means 'the girl is tall'.

When there is an object (who or what the action is done to), it usually comes between the subject and the verb. So, Hopi sentences often follow a Subject–Object–Verb (SOV) order.

Noun and Pronoun Forms

Like nouns, pronouns (words like 'I', 'you', 'he') also change their form. This depends on whether they are the subject or the object of a sentence. For example, 'you' as a subject is um, but 'you' as an object is ung.

Words that point to something, called Demonstratives (like 'this' or 'that'), also change form.

• iˈ/it – this
• pam/put – it
• miˈ/mit – that
• ima/imuy – these
• puma/pumuy – them
• mima/mimuy – those

Singular, Dual, and Plural

Hopi shows if there is one, two, or many of something. This is called dual and plural.

• If there are two nouns, they get a special suffix -vit. But the verb stays singular.
• Hopi doesn't have special pronouns for two people. Instead, plural pronouns are used with singular verbs to mean two.
• For more than two, nouns and verbs change to show plurality. This often involves repeating part of the word.

Here are some examples:

Hopi and the Idea of Time

Benjamin Lee Whorf, a famous linguist, studied Hopi. He used it to explain his idea that our language can affect how we see the world. Whorf famously said that Hopi had "no words... that refer directly to what we call 'time.'"

This statement was often misunderstood. Whorf didn't mean that Hopi people had no idea of time passing. He meant they didn't think of time as something you can divide up, like hours or minutes. Instead, they focused on how events unfold or happen. Other linguists have studied this topic and found that Hopi does have ways to talk about time.

See also

In Spanish: Idioma hopi para niños